


Sound and Color Under My Control

by HoneySempai



Series: A Cord of Three Strands [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pet Shop of Horrors, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (TV)
Genre: Animal Therapy, Anxiety, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Clumsy Sex, Crack and Angst, Emotional Sex, English History, Explicit Consent, F/M, First Time (sorta technically), Folk Music, Food Porn, Forced Outing, Gen, Halloween, Hand Feeding, In a manner of speaking, Intersex Peggy Carter, Intersex Steve Rogers, Interviews, Invasion of Privacy, Irish Steve Rogers (kinda), Irish history, Jewish Laura Barton, Jewish Steve Rogers, Lingerie, M/M, Multi, National Coming Out Day, Native American Steve Rogers, Oral Sex, Panic Attacks, Paparazzi, Peggy's British you know, Phone Calls & Telephones, Photography, Protective Steve Rogers, Rape Recovery, Renaissance Faires, Scottish Bucky Barnes, Shabbat, Slight d/s because they’re definitely not ready for kink but my god Bucky is subby, Social Media, The rape/non-con warning is for the discussion thereof, Therapy, There is no rape scene in this story, Threesome - F/M/M, Trans Natasha Romanov, Trans Peter Parker, Vaginal Sex, You can't tell me that Bucky "you're keeping the outfit right?" Barnes doesn't have a costume kink, everyone is baby birds, it makes sense in context don’t worry, manual sex, my kink is ruining Bucky's day, not quite hair-pulling but eh close enough, people are terrible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2018-11-29 20:00:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 56,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11448021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoneySempai/pseuds/HoneySempai
Summary: October 5th, 2014A plan to infiltrate Avengers Tower goes monumentally askew, but not without collateral damage.While in hiding, Steve, Peggy, and Bucky rediscover parts of their relationship—and themselves—that they feared were buried too deep to unearth, and in so doing find a way to move forward.





	1. All Over the Place

**Author's Note:**

> So I know I should be working on "Language" but this idea seized me and I had to pursue it. I'll probably work on them concurrently, though "Language" should be longer. 
> 
> This is going to be part of a mini-series within Co3S 'verse themed around U2's [Zooropa](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooropa) album. This particular story is inspired by the song "[Babyface](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B8_pgxLU5Q8)". Though the band says that the song is about a stalker, I grew up thinking it was about a photographer who was in love with his model, and both influences are gonna be present here. 
> 
> I'm also gonna be experimenting with putting out shorter chapters than I normally do...we'll see how that works out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW invasion of privacy/paparazzi, misogyny/slut-shaming, queerphobia, polyamory-phobia (is there a term for this?), rape victim-blaming, cissexism/perisexism**

"What is this? What. the _hell_. is this?"

Tony blinks up from his first cup of coffee for the morning just in time to nearly startle out of his chair when a StarkPad crashes onto the table in front of him. 

"Good morning to you, too. You know, these things aren't indestructible; planned obsolescence--"

" _What the hell is this?_ " Peggy hisses, a tiny bit of a shriek making its way into her tone. Beside her Steve's face is doing its best impression of a fire truck. 

"Well..." Tony drawls, picking up the tablet and trying not to show it too much when his heart skips a half-beat. "It appears to be an inquiry into the status of your relationship with Steve."

 ** _CARTER CHEATING?_** questions the headline. **_CAPTAIN AMERICA'S WIFE SPOTTED GETTING COZY WITH WINTER SOLDIER!_** A flick of the thumb to scroll down reveals a remarkably high quality picture through one of the windows of the Tower; it's a chaste scene of Peggy and Bucky sitting on the couch together, Peggy pulling Bucky's hair away from his face so she can lay a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth, and him reaching up to touch her wrist in turn. Two smaller photos underneath it are of the same location, with Peggy and Bucky in various states of sleepily draped over each other.

"How the _fuck_ did they get these pictures?" Steve finally explodes. "I thought you said our windows were one-way?"

"They are. JARVIS?" Tony says, standing, as worry replaces the need for caffeine in waking him up. 

"I have detected no recent attempts at aerial surveillance," is the dutiful response. 

"That's...not good. That's very not good. Who took this picture? Oh, no source. That's wonderful."

"Tony?" Pepper's voice floats stiffly into the room from the intercom. "JARVIS says someone's spying on the Tower?"

"Looks like it. And taking not-quite-boudoir shots of Carter and Barnes to give the paps."

"I'm on my way down."

"Could they have taken pictures of anything else?" Steve forces himself to say, in the interest of the bigger picture. 

"Well the lab doesn't have any windows, and it's got more security measures, so..."

"But we don't know how powerful this...whatever the hell it is, is. What its capabilities are."

"Yes. We don't. Fuck. Well, I'm not working on anything that's super classified at the moment, at least..."

"What about the compound?" Peggy asks. "If their intel is compromised..."

"Wait, though, honestly?" Tony says, starting to calm as a new thought strikes him. "If someone was capable of that sorta in-depth spy tech, they probably wouldn't want to make us aware of it."

"It could be a smokescreen," Steve says. 

"No no, of course, call up the compound. In the meantime--"

"I told JARVIS to put the building on lockdown," Pepper says, striding into the room, somehow as commanding in the pajamas that she hasn't changed out of as she would be in a pants suit. Her own StarkPad is clutched in her hands, opened to a similar article as the one still displayed on the table. "No one can even open up the blinds until I say so. Dammit, I _thought_ there were more paparazzi outside than usual..."

"--I'll call some of our spies-in-residence, see if they can't figure out who did this," Tony finishes. 

"Does Bucky know about this yet?" Pepper asks.

"He was in the shower when we...oh, shit." Steve strides across the dining room, pressing the button to call their suite. "Buck?"

"Steve?" The sound of a shower spray fills up the background. 

"You all right?"

"...Yes? Why're you asking? Where are you?"

"We're in Tony and Pepper's dining room," Peggy calls over. 

"Is everything okay?" Bucky asks, slowly; there's a loud squeak of metal, and the shower sounds cut off. 

Steve grimaces, but better that Bucky find out about it from him, rather than from trying and failing to open up a door; lockdown required knowledge of special codes to move from one room to another. "All right Buck, now don't...don't freak out, but Pepper put the building on lockdown."

"...Why?"

"Someone might, someone might be spying on us, darling," Peggy answers. There's an extremely telling silence in response. "Bucky?"

"Yeah?" is the trying-not-to-sound-small reply. 

"Do you want to come down here? Or do you want us to come to you?"

"I'll, um...I'll, um...I'm, I'm in a towel."

"We'll be right there, Buck," Steve says, without missing a beat. 

"Calling Fury now," Tony says, as soon as Steve takes his finger off the intercom. 

"I am so sorry about this," Pepper says, as she steps out of the way so Steve and Peggy can rush out the door, towards the elevator. 

It's not unusual for Bucky, or for any of them, to not get dressed for awhile after showering. Their skin is far more sensitive than the average person's, and the steam heat emanating off them immediately following a hot shower makes most clothing material scratchy and irritating until they cool down. It _is_ unusual for Bucky to have draped an additional towel over his shoulders, to cover his back and chest, and for him to still be in the bathroom, sitting hunched over on the closed toilet, instead of back in their bedroom burrowing under the soft covers until he feels ready to get dressed. 

Peggy touches his hand, clasping the two sides of his top towel together, and immediately turns on her heel and heads for the kitchen. 

"Why do you think someone's spying on us?" Bucky asks, once he fully registers Peggy's arrival, touch, and departure.

Steve hesitates, his hands balling into impotent fists at his sides. He and Peggy had sworn, to each other and to Bucky, to never withhold information from him, but it's hard enough for Bucky to live with the fact that everything Hydra had done to, and with, him was made public record with the Triskelion collapse. To find out now, only a few months later, that his own home had been compromised...

Something would slip. Even if Bucky never saw anything himself, Tony or Pepper or someone on the team would phrase something carelessly at some point, and this thought is what convinces Steve to speak. 

"There's...there're pictures, of you and Peggy. Not, they're not anything...indecent, you're not...you're fully clothed, both of you. But it's through our window. The living room window."

"How?" Bucky asks, more raspy than he wants. 

"We don't know yet," Steve says, crouching and then kneeling so he's level with Bucky. "Tony's calling Fury; they're gonna try to find out who did this, and if there're anymore...any other pictures. Of anything. You or...anything to do with the Avengers."

Bucky nods, a trace automatically. "Do we know...why are they taking pictures of us?"

"Tabloid fodder," Steve says immediately, trying to sound gentle and reassuring through his clenching jaw. Bucky had spent _weeks_ after the Zemo incident too terrified to sleep for fear of being taken away, either by someone from Hydra looking to reclaim their asset, or by someone from the government or the UN deciding that he was too dangerous to live freely. Steve is going to find whoever did this, and heads are going to roll. "Someone...the article we saw is claiming that you two're having an affair."

Bucky considers the floor for a moment, before he forces a laugh to come out of his mouth. "They think I stole your girl, Steve?"

Steve snorts. "I know. Completely unrealistic, right?"

"Hey," Bucky protests; he finally looks up, to give Steve a show offended pout. 

Peggy bustles back into the room with a cup of tea that had been almost physically painful for her to microwave for the sake of quickness, rather than boil properly on the stove. Bucky wills one of his hands to let go of the top towel, shifting his shoulders so it stays in place, so he can take the cup from her. The trapped steam in the room has been helping to keep him from plunging back into the memory of the ice, and the hot tea will only aid him further; he smiles gratefully up at her as he takes his first sip. 

"Should we leave?" Peggy asks. 

"Would rather you guys stay," Bucky mumbles into the lip of his cup. 

"No, I mean. All of us leave the Tower. Until we know the, the extent of this."

"Where would we go?" Steve asks. 

"Anywhere secluded. Our safehouses might or might not be compromised, but we could find some place else..."

"I don't really want to be chased out of my own home," Bucky mutters, sounding unconvinced by his own argument.

"You want to stay here?" Steve asks, and when Bucky doesn't answer except to shrug tightly he tries something more circuitous. "Are you comfortable getting dressed, at least? You don't have to leave the bathroom. I'll bring you some clothes."

Bucky hesitates again, and glances up, gaze running the walls of the bathroom. The room has no windows, seeing as how it's in the middle of the suite, so it should be fine. Rationally, no one can see him here. Any reasonable person would conclude that he's completely safe. He shifts, and his lips part to say as much.

Peggy touches his shoulder after ten seconds of silence, and his third visible sweep of the room. 

"I guess we should go," he finally says, with a pained laugh; Peggy bites her lip, and Steve leaves, to fetch the promised clothes, before he puts one of his fists through a mirror. 

*

**i fucking love captain america** posted a **link**  
THIS JUST IN: PEGGY CARTER IS A CHEATING WHORE #FreeCap #CapDeservesBetter #LeaveHerSteve #CarterGoHome  
**Avengers Tower on lockdown after possibly compromising photo...**  
whih.com

 **Bonita Cecile**  
Can't f'ing believe this. With his BEST FRIEND.  
3 hours ago  
**Christa Keeley**  
What a disgrace. She's always acted so prissy and high class in public, should of known what she was like behind closed doors! ! SLUT! ! !  
3 hours ago  
**Zula Xavier**  
why the tower on lockdown tho  
3 hours ago  
**Deeann Delphia**  
@Zula Xavier probably to keep all the paps out so they don't see Cap beatin they asses lol ^o^ put those cheatin bitches on BLAST  
3 hours ago  
**Candi Sheree**  
omg ppl Peggy Carter is EUROPEAN!! People in Europe are much more physically affectionate with their friends and family than Americans are, not everyone .is huge prudes like us. It was probably just a friend kiss, she wasn't sticking her tongue down his throat, jesus  
3 hours ago  
**Ezra Branda**  
Douche move, "Sargent" Barnes. That is a serious violation of the Bro Code.  
3 hours ago  
**Emmy Claribel Konnor-Milo**  
@Candi Sheree clearly you have never been to England they are a LOT more conservative there than he rest off Europe. I don't buy for a second that it was a "friend kiss" British people don't do that kind of thing. She kissed Barnes on the mouth she is DEFIANTLY cheating on Steve. A picture is worth a 1000 words.............  
3 hours ago  
**Keira Micky**  
I mean everyone knows Cap/Carter/Barnes have been a thing since the 40's so...  
2 hours ago  
**Jessalyn Cuthbert**  
Can we talk about how creepy it is that she's kissing BUCKY BARNES of all people? He just got back from having his brain fried by Hydra like two minutes ago, he probably doesn't even know how to say "no" to her. This is super predatory and gross.  
2 hours ago  
**Danny Darnell**  
bucky barnes is a fag nazi whore . he'll fuck anyone we got video to prove it. smh cap shouldve kno better, then to bring him home wit him.............  
2 hours ago  
**Kandace Harriet**  
omg I'm heartbroken T-T I love cap and carter together, their story is so sweet. they made me believe in true love. I hope this is just one big misunderstanding....  
2 hours ago  
**Jessalyn Cuthbert**  
@Danny Darnell wtf is your problem??? Bucky VERY CLEARLY didn't consent to any of that. He was incapable of refusing and we have LITERALLY hundreds of documents confirming that. Peggy Carter is taking advantage of a severely traumatized man's trust in her as his best friend's wife, and it's disgusting.  
2 hours ago  
**Candi Sheree**  
@Emmy Claribel Konnor-Milo uh yes i HAVE been to England and your talking out of your ass. It is perfectly normal for British people to kiss their friends ON THE CHEEK, which is what she did, look at the pictures again. You all just wanna believe so bad that she's cheating when we've never heard of anything bad about their relationship and theyve always seemed perfectly happy together. smh there's good in the world ppl go outside for once  
2 hours ago  
**Jeanine Gladwin**  
@Keira Micky stop involving Steve Rogers in your delusional fantasies. He is Captain America, a decorated war hero and the leader of the Avengers. He does not engage in homosexual sex acts and he certainly does not have threesomes with his wife and another man. Show some class, and respect.  
2 hours ago  
**Daryl Fitzroy**  
Just goes to show it doesn't matter who you are...how handsome you are....how much money you make...you could be the best man on earth and a woman will still cheat on you. smh at every woman saying that y'all don't hate nice guys. Peggy Carter is cheating on Steve Rogers, your argument is invalid.  
2 hours ago  
**Danny Darnell**  
all womn r whores and so is bucyk barnes......who knos maybe captin americuck gets off watchin barnes ride carters dick....u kno she got one................  
2 hours ago  
**Keira Micky**  
@Jeanine Gladwin lmao read "A Secret Peace" by Lauren Driscoll and then get back to me on that. They've basically proven it. CapCarter didn't even leave the hospital the WHOLE TIME Bucky was at pcm and they took him to to a different state to live with them as soon as he was released. Idk anyone who would do that for "just a friend"  
2 hours ago  
**Harry Long**  
@Deanna Delphia I don't normally think it's okay to hit ladies. But when you cheat, you're no longer a lady. I hope he knocks her teeth out.  
2 hours ago  
**Diana Godfrey**  
noOOOOO Bucky is supposed to be with STEVE not Peggy!! T-T T-T T-T T-T  
2 hours ago  
**Caryn Aldiss**  
@Keira Micky you must not have very good friends then. I would do that for MY best friend in the same circumstances. Just bc people care about each other doesn't mean there boning come on  
2 hours ago  
**Tina Alexa**  
@Daryl Fitzroy just because no one wants to suck ur dick doesn't mean all women hate nice guys  
2 hours ago  
**Mikki Dwain**  
@Jessalyn Cuthbert Bucky Barnes is NOT under Hydra's control anymore. He is a grown man and he is clearly reciprocating Peggy's advances. Stop coddling him. It takes two ton cheat; SO tired of only women being blamed while the men get off scottfree!!!  
1 hour ago  
**London May**  
@Danny Darnell troll harder  
1 hour ago  
**Avery Orrell**  
omg who cares!! there are so many more important things to worry about besides which avenger is screwing who. Ellis wants to take gray wolves off the Endangered Species List, didntou know about that? No bc you are too busy obsesing over whether some dumb celebrity superhero is cheating on her husband or not. I don't wanna live on this planet anymore.  
1 hour ago  
**Essie Randolph**  
@Harry Long it is NEVER ok to wish a man would punch a woman no matter WHAT she's done. A proper response to cheating is divorce or, if you want to save the relationship, marriage counseling. Never violence.  
1 hour ago  
**Grace Craig**  
U don't know what their marriage is like.......I was married for thirteen years and from the outside everyone thought he was the perfect husband........but in the privacy of our home he was very different........he ignored me in favor of his work...yelled at me when I tried to talk to him........wouldn't even hold my hand unless we were where people could see us. We wound up sleeping in different beds....I'm not proud of this........but I did sleep with someone else.....bc after two years of this behavior I was so lonely...........im not saying what I did was right but if a woman is cheating there's probably a reason...............don't judge until you know the whole story... god bless .  
1 hour ago  
**Yasmin Anderson**  
lmao you guys this is clearly fake. I live nearby and you can't see inside any of the windows of avengers tower past the fifth floor. someone made this up in photoshop and you all fell for it lol smh  
just now  
**Marcia Marlee**  
i. earn $8000 a month working from home! Click on my name to find out how !  
just now  
**Jesse Alcott**  
If this is true this is really messed up. Not JUST that Agent Carter would cheat on her husband, although that's plenty wrong right there, but with who. You always read about how close Barnes and Cap were growing up. They were the very definition of "bros before hoes" if you'll pardon my language. And they knew each other for a lot longer than either of them knew Carter so there's a lot more history and loyalty there, or at least there should be. You'd think that if they were still real, true friends that Barnes wouldn't put up with this behavior from her. Hate to say it, but maybe Hydra really DID change him, and Cap's only finding it out now...  
just now

*

"Good news is we know who did it."

"Who is it?" Steve demands. It's only been a few minutes since Bucky's gotten dressed, in the bathroom, with Steve and Peggy holding up towels around him to shield him from any possible prying eyes; they'd been trying to figure out where they would go, and if either Steve or Peggy should stick around, when Tony's voice came through the intercom.

"Pepper called up the Bugle and asked who sold them the photo. Thankfully some nervous-sounding kid picked up instead of that Jameson dickhead, so he gave her what she wanted immediately. Seller's some guy named Charles Allan, which Nat reliably informs me is an alias. Real name's Eddie Brock, and of course he cannot be reached for comment, but you'll never guess who he works for."

"Can't be Hydra," Peggy mutters. "They're not nearly that transparent."

"I always knew you were the smart one out of the three. Yeah, it's not Hydra. It's good ol' Hammertech."

"Who?" Bucky asks.

Tony laughs, a genuine burst of mirth. "Oh, bless you, Barnes. Warms my heart to know that Hydra never even bothered considering them a threat."

"Tony," Steve warns.

"Hammertech's my _supposed_ rival company, in the same way a tricycle rivals a Maserati. I put the old CEO away a couple years ago for hiring the _one_ competent person they've ever had on their payroll, because he tried to kill me."

"The CEO?" Bucky questions. "Or the competent guy?"

"Yes."

"Well, clearly someone there is smarter than you think," Peggy says tensely. "Because they got past our windows _and_ JARVIS's surveillance."

"Don't know if it's "smart" so much as "able to read". SHIELD, the sneaky collective bastard, was working on that sort of cloaked drone tech, in case I went rogue or something, I guess. Stop: Hammertime probably picked up that info when Nat dumped the SHIELD files. Hydra files? _Shydra_ files."

"And you weren't working on some sort of countermeasure?" Steve asks, his teeth gritted.

"Been a bit busy." They have to give him that—between developing and perfecting the Iron Legion, upgrading and repairing the rest of the team's equipment, and whatever other projects he's been kicking around, they were lucky to even catch him in the kitchen this morning—but not especially graciously; Tony picks up again after a beat of silence. "And Fury didn't think that technology was developed enough for them to penetrate--teehee--anything, anyway. It still probably isn't able to reach the lab, so our Avengers secrets should be safe, but he's got a couple agents going to check out their facilities just in case. Probably gonna confiscate whatever they have, since they did, you know, at least _endanger_ our intel. Wouldn't be surprised if a whole lotta people there get in a whole lotta trouble. We should really thank Brock for showing Hammertech's ass like that for us."

"Why would this guy be taking pictures of _us_?" Bucky asks.

"Dolla billz, my friend. I'm betting Brock knew they weren't gonna advance the tech enough to actually get inside my lab, so he took what they did have for himself and turned paparazzi instead. Jameson paid a pretty penny for those pictures, and probably so did anyone else he sold them to." There's a pause. "If it's any consolation, he was probably looking for _me_ doing something embarrassing. You were just...there. Crime of opportunity."

"Can't we do anything?" Peggy asks, as she watches Bucky try to believe Tony that he's not being purposely, personally watched. "Legally? Can't we sue, or...press charges...?"

"I'm looking into it," Pepper's voice joins the conversation. "I think you establish a reasonable expectation of privacy when you've got one-way windows, but we'd have to see what a judge would say about it."

"Bucky," he looks at Peggy, "if we can, if we find this man, is that something you'd want us to do?"

"He had no right to do this to you," Steve nearly spits. "Either of you," he continues, looking at Peggy. "He shouldn't be allowed to get away with it."

"Gotta warn you, though, lawsuits aren't much fun," Tony says, his own warning tone coming through his flippant words. "There's people, and paperwork, and courtrooms, and... _people_..."

"Do we have to decide right now?" Bucky asks, sounding a little strangled.

"No," Peggy says, taming her previous vehemence into a general firmness. "No, of course we don't, darling. We've got time." She glances at Steve, whose face is nearly as red as it was this morning, and under her gaze he wills himself to calm down.

Across the room Steve and Peggy's phones buzz, one right after the other; the three of them all look at each other for a moment, before their owners go to pick them up.

"Sharon," Peggy announces, once her phone is in hand. "She's asking if we're okay."

"Sam's wantin' to know the same thing," Steve says, looking down at his own phone. His fingers hover over the keypad, trying to figure out how to reply, and Sam decides for him by actually calling. Steve presses the Speaker option, and sets his phone back down on the table. "Hey."

"Hey, man," Sam says; Peggy and Bucky, and Tony and Pepper, call their own salutations to let Sam know he's on Speaker. "Hey guys. Um, Sharon's with me."

"Hi," Sharon confirms, tentatively, and the Tower residents greet her in turn.

"We were gettin' breakfast when we heard what happened," Sam continues; since Steve moved to New York, Sharon has taken over as Sam's running buddy, and a stop-in at a local cafe at the end of the run is growing into a tradition. "It's, um...it's on the morning news."

"Oh, Lord," Peggy moans, as a strange pins-and-needles sensation takes over Bucky's gut.

"We find out who did it yet?" Sharon asks.

"Yeah, we...Fury's got people lookin' into it," Steve reports. "It looks like we don't have anything to worry about, Avengers-wise. Just, you know, some asshole thinkin' he's at liberty to take pictures of Bucky and Peggy in their own home and sell 'em."

"What're you gonna do?" Sam asks gently.

"Make it look like an accident."

"I mean about..."

"Like, are you going to release a statement, or...?" Sharon asks, when Sam hesitates.

"Why should we have to release a statement?" Peggy says crisply. "Our relationship is _our_ business. No one else's."

"Hate to break it to you guys," Tony says, and he does sound like he genuinely means that, "but Brock kinda made your relationship _everyone's_ business as of this morning."

"No he didn't," Steve snaps. "No one has the right to _any_ information about our private lives," he says, addressing Bucky, who is having a difficult time looking anywhere but at the floor. 

"Maybe you might want to just...set the record straight?" Sharon offers. "At least just confirm that there's no affair going on."

"Again, our relationship is no one's business but our own," Peggy says, and Sharon makes a noise that sounds like a frown. "What?"

"Nothing, just...nothing. It's you guys' decision."

"No, tell me what you were thinking."

"It's just..."

"The news isn't being very kind," Sam says, taking his turn to help a friend out. "Particularly to Peggy."

"The news can say whatever it wants about me," Peggy says firmly, though the looks Steve and Bucky give her makes her resolve falter just the slightest bit. "Everyone whose opinion is actually important knows the truth."

"If it doesn't affect public safety, you really aren't obligated to disclose anything," Pepper offers. "I guess the worst this can do is temporarily undermine confidence in the Avengers, but I doubt the effect would be catastrophic even if that happens. People forgive and forget celebrity affairs all the time. So what I'll do is this: once we have all of Hammertech's stuff, I'll cancel the lockdown and release a statement that there were security concerns for the Tower, and I'll suggest the possibility that doctored documentation may or may not have been put in circulation..."

"Thank you, Pepper," Steve murmurs.

"What're you guys planning to do as of _right now_?" Sam asks.

How well he knows them and their thought processes. "Well, we _were_ gonna try to find someplace to hide out for awhile..." Steve says, and glances at Bucky as he trails off. "Buck? You still wanna do that?"

"I'm still working on a counter-measure, if that, you know, influences your decision-making at all," Tony says. 

"I guess it doesn't matter, right?" Bucky says, finally starting to sound angry in addition to helpless. "Anywhere we go someone might be watching us."

"Having a jet leave in stealth mode would fit the narrative of a feared security breach," Pepper nudges. "There's no real need for you to stick around if you're not releasing a statement. If you want to find somewhere to go...get your mind off things for awhile, we'll take care of the cats for you. If it's more than this weekend I'll clue your doctors in as to what's going on."

"I know it's not Official Avengers Business, but I don't think anyone would hold it against you if you took some photostatic masks," Sam tacks on.

"Or, you know, it's October," Sharon pipes up. "There're tons of Halloween-themed events going on everywhere. If you want to put on some costumes that involve masks, that'd work, too."

"Buck?" Steve says, glancing at him. Bucky had loved Halloween as a kid, even when he forfeited the dances and parades of his young-childhood in favor of sitting at the Rogers' window with Steve all night, eating homemade sweets, making up ghost stories, and watching for vandals. It's a shitty way to try to give the experience back to him, but it might be good medicine, at least.

Bucky closes his eyes like he's going to cry, inhales deeply like he's trying not to hyperventilate, clenches his metal fist like he's going to punch something. Things had been going so comparatively well lately; he's been sleeping better, eating slightly more, working on a letter to send Rebecca's family. He'd been almost ready to call his days peaceful. Steve and Peggy have been brightening up, themselves...

"It's completely up to you, darling," Peggy encourages. "What's important is that you feel safe."

"Genie's out of that bottle, Peg," Bucky makes himself laugh, adding a small smile so she knows he means no ill feeling in her direction. "Yeah. Let's leave. Let's go somewhere."

"You sure?" Steve asks. 

Bucky nods, because he's used to having things taken away from him, and so long as it's neither Steve nor Peggy, he can handle losing one more.


	2. You're Looking Fine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: Discussion of mental illness; reference to rape and murder; misogyny/slut-shaming; racism/religious bigotry**

"Somewhere" turns out to be a...

"Renn Faire?" Steve repeats. 

"Yes," Pepper says, brandishing the three tickets at their intended recipients. "Stark Industries offers certain perks to employees. Concerts, ice shows, plays, sporting events, and, as it happens, renaissance festivals."

"I'm sorry, what's, what's a Renn Faire?" Bucky cuts in.

"It's where the sub-species Biggust Nerdus go to find their mates," Tony says.

"It's like a science fair, except it's for people who are interested in history and high fantasy," Pepper says, more helpfully. "Kings and queens, fairies, dragons, elves...that sort of thing."

"And why...this...in particular?" Peggy asks.

"Mainly because it's a minimum-security event where you can get away with wearing masks. A lot of people will be, especially since it's Halloween season. Also, the fair's in Tuxedo Park, so it's not too far away in case something comes up and you have to come home immediately. And the fairgrounds are very expansive; there's lots of open space on the outskirts, if you need to take a breather from the crowds." 

"And where are we...acquiring these masks?" 

"Do you know how many parties have been thrown in this Tower since it was built?" Tony asks.

"Forty-eight, sir," JARVIS answers, since of course Steve, Peggy, and Bucky would not know.

"And how many of those have been masquerades?" 

"Fifteen."

"What Tony is getting at," Pepper cuts in, "is that we have some costumes you can borrow. Ours and some that have been left here."

"And some of them are even safe to be seen in public," Tony adds. 

"Natasha and Agent Hill've added a few of their pieces, as well," Pepper says, after swatting the back of Tony's head. "But I don't think they have anything that would be appropriate for a Faire."

"What about..." Bucky raises his metal hand.

"It's cold; wear gloves," Tony advises blithely. "Also, you're welcome in advance, we booked you a hotel room nearby if you _don't_ want to come back tonight. Two beds, to keep up appearances, of course. Do with the second what you will."

"The tickets and the reservation are under my name," Pepper says, slipping the tickets into Peggy's hand. "Both venues see our employees all the time, so no one's going to think twice about it. Especially since I don't use my nom d'affaires."

Indeed, upon further inspection, the tickets bear the name of V. Ann Potts, rather than Pepper. 

"I didn't know your middle name was Ann," Peggy says mildly. 

"It suits her, doesn't it? I mean, after all Pepper Ann _is_ like [one in a million](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OcajSzQX4k8)," Tony sows, reaping a groan from Pepper and confused looks from Team America. 

"Tony's gonna drop you off in a stealth quinjet. We'll pick you up whenever you call. It will literally take minutes to get to you, so don't worry about what time it is when you feel ready to come back."

"Thank you," Bucky says, glancing almost sheepishly between Tony and Pepper. "You guys..." His metal arm twitches. "You guys're somethin' else."

"Don't get it twisted," Tony says. "I'm just making it so you'll owe me literally every single favor I could ever ask of you in the future."

"You don't really need to _do_ anything for that."

"Anyway," Tony says, a little loudly, as Steve's grip on Bucky's shoulder tightens, "we keep everything stashed in the ballroom coat closet. The sixth floor one," he elaborates, when Peggy raises her finger in questioning. "Have at it."

There are, in fact, more costumes than originally expected by the triad, which isn't that surprising in retrospect; Tony _would_ be the guy who changes four times in one night, and the selection means that guests who couldn't spend the money or time on a costume wouldn't have to decline the invitation on that count. Peggy's frown doesn't disappear, but she nonetheless visibly brightens once she sees the racks of dresses available to her, and she approaches them with something of a spring in her step. 

Steve is less enthusiastic as he paws through another rack of more masculine costumes, recalling his USO days with extremely begrudging fondness and grateful that no one is there to appraise him with a [measuring tape applied to embarrassing places on his person](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4938718/chapters/11334151). He finds the first costume with a full face mask dangling from the neck of the hanger and pulls it off the rack, holding it out to Bucky to try on first, ever the gentleman. 

"Not your style?" he asks, after a second of Bucky looking at it without moving to take it. 

Bucky makes a noncommittal noise, his fingers flexing. He knows a face covering of some sort is necessary, but a _mask_ in particular...

He could take a photostatic mask. Probably. That would let him talk unhindered. But it's bad enough that they're already using a quinjet for a ruse instead of official business, and he doesn't want to risk damaging it besides; they're something of a limited resource now. Tony _could_ make more, yeah, but Bucky doesn't want to put that on him...

Maybe they shouldn't go after all. It's ridiculous to be so shaken. If anyone was spying on them in the hopes of trying to take him away, they'd have done it by now, right? And Steve and Peggy are public figures, so of course people would find ways to take pictures of them; they'd been inundated with photographers when they tried to leave PCM, too. It's time to accept the fact that for as long as he doesn't rabbit to Antarctica or somewhere similarly remote, he'll be a public figure, too. And—everyone has told him this, time and again—the Tower is his home. Some dickhead paparazzi whose alias was undone in a matter of minutes shouldn't have enough power to chase him from it. 

But he's only left the Tower that one time, which wasn't...that doesn't count, and it's been six months since the helicarriers fell. Six months should be more than enough time to be ready to go out in public, especially in disguise. Never mind the fact that anyone he meets is very likely to have seen video footage of him being strapped to the electric chair and shocked into obedience, or to have read the dossier confirming who killed Oscar Romero and then helped terrorize the funeral, or would want—and demand—to know why Tony is putting him up in the Tower after he smashed Howard's skull into his brain...

"Buck?" he only just registers Steve saying, and he's suddenly aware that his tell is starting to form: locked knees causing him to sway on his feet; his head turning sideways, gaze slanting up, as his eyes start to water. "We don't have to do this, you know. We can find someplace else to go. Or stay here. Whatever you want."

"Everything all right?" Bucky blinks, and again, purposely, before he turns around to face Peggy, and blinks again. Peggy's half stripped down, the dress she's stepped into held up around her hips as she waddles into their view. 

"Fine," slips out of his mouth, as she shoves her left arm into the corresponding sleeve, and hitches the bodice fully up. 

"Is he?" Peggy directs at Steve as she slips the other sleeve onto her arm, and adjusts the dress so it lays comfortably. It's a [peasant dress](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0042VXKLO/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll1&tag=hallocostume-20&linkId=646196f7d9bfd8b4639b3f56457b2a3c)—easier to fight and run in, should it come to that at any point, than a court gown—in blue and white, and the [half-mask](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00QV37DI2/ref=mp_s_a_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1501053581&sr=8-10&pi=AC_UL420_SR280,420_QL65&keywords=navy+blue+masquerade+mask) she plans to wear with it rests on her forehead. 

"I'm right here, y'know," Bucky mumbles, but a little distractedly. 

"Started to fade out," Steve reports. Traitor.

"I'm _fine_ ," Bucky insists. " _Yes_ , I...it's the background noise. It's okay."

His therapist had called it similar to [P-OCD](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primarily_obsessional_obsessive_compulsive_disorder), if not a straight manifestation of it; a constant, intractable loop of thoughts holding his nerves hostage. There are mental exercises to help mitigate it—he'd done one of them this morning, before getting in the shower, although any good it had rendered was immediately undone when Steve called him—and in the meantime he's determined to try to live through them, for his partners' sake if not his own. They, by some act of God, love him and are invested in his well-being; they don't deserve to see him never get out of bed but still hardly ever sleep. 

"We can go. I want to go." 

Peggy purses her lips to the side, assessing him; Bucky can tell Steve is doing the same beside him, and he does his best to look calmly decisive. Peggy, at least, accepts his words at face value after a moment, because she turns her back to him.

"Zip me up, then, darling?"

Her tattoo peeks out at him between the sides of the dress and there's a little niggling feeling in his brain that tells him he should leave the dress partially unzipped, just so he can see it. He glances back at Steve without realizing it, and the frown Steve's wearing melts into a bit of a smirk when he realizes what Bucky is thinking.

"Is there a problem, gentlemen?" Peggy asks, amusedly pointed, and Bucky finishes zipping the dress with some noticeable reluctance.

Steve continues smirking, the expression growing more devious as an idea is clearly forming, and to Bucky's surprise he turns away and disappears behind a cluster of costume-laden hangers with the outfit he had initially offered to Bucky. Bucky resigns himself to waiting a few minutes to see what Steve's dreaming up, and keeps pawing through his options. Maybe a half-mask like what Peggy has wouldn't be so bad, since it wouldn't cover his mouth...

Or, he thinks as it comes into view, a fake beard could work just as well. Especially attached to a pointy gray hat and long wig, accompanied by a matching robe. [Gandalf](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B009YD7BX8/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1501053772&sr=8-3&pi=AC_UL420_SR280,420_QL65&keywords=gandalf+costume) is Renaissance Faire-appropriate, right? Pepper had mentioned dragons and elves being a theme. (He's re-read _The Hobbit_ on Steve's urging a few times now; parts of the story had been eerily, intimately familiar while others felt like it was the first he's ever read of them.)

"Hey Buck," Steve calls, just as Bucky pulls the costume off the hanger, and when he turns he nearly drops it. Steve has wisely kept the admittedly unsettling mask off for the moment, letting it not ruin the effect of the [all-black outfit](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000YMVLU2/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1501053722&sr=8-2&pi=AC_UL420_SR280,420_QL65&keywords=v+for+vendetta+costume), the _cape_ , the fact that the pants are slightly too small and consequently _skintight_...

"I get the feeling like _you guys_ really wanna stay here," Bucky cracks, his throat suddenly rather dry.

"They tell us what time we can check into the hotel?" Steve tosses back, that shit-eating expression growing bigger.

This is nice. This is good. Since the three of them started sleeping in the same bed, Steve and Peggy have been less reticent to get... _blatant_ with him. He knew they'd been scared to touch him too much or in the wrong way, scared to presume that this part of their old life had made it to the 21st century, and force it on him against his will and best interests. Which was immensely touching, and safe, and frustrating as all hell, because everyone seemed very determined to not only remember that Bucky was Different Now, but to make sure that he remained so.

It isn't his nature to start an argument right out the gate, though, and if he shed tears over it he made sure to save them for the privacy of the shower stall. Instead, he took the quiet initiative. Small touches to the face, shoulders, hips, thighs (though he can't bring himself to add necks and backs to that roster just yet, not outside of supervised touch therapy sessions, at least); playful little smacks on the bottom. Chaste kisses that lingered just a beat longer than expected. Pretending to be confident about changing in front of them until he mostly actually was. (Wetly choking out "You know, it's not like anyone with Hydra fucking _flirted_ with me; I can tell the goddamn difference between you and them" that one evening when they finally worked up the nerve to confront him about it.) 

The response, thankfully, has been cautiously enthusiastic. 

"Anytime between 3 pm and midnight; don't you listen when Pepper talks?" Peggy teases from the floor, where she's trying on some ankle boots to match the dress. 

"Think you can wait for a few hours?" Bucky asks, with a wink and a grin that are still a little weak for the events of this morning. 

"If I _have to_ ," Steve whines, his eyes rolling towards the ceiling in response to this greatest of trials. Bucky makes a silly face at him, and very deliberately pulls the robe over his clothes rather than changing out of them first. 

"You guys decent?" Tony calls from the doorway, and when they answer to the affirmative he strides in, waving and then tossing a pair of gloves in Bucky's direction. "Hey, they're even gray."

"The planets aligned," Bucky says with a small laugh, as he begins pulling them on.

"Technically they should be fingerless, per the movies, but whatever. Some nerd tries to rag on you for that you can just break 'em in half."

" _Tony_ ," Steve says, a trace automatically.

"I find it interesting that you remember such a small detail from the movie..." Peggy muses.

"I'm an engineer. An eagle eye is an unfortunate side effect."

"Oh I'm sure."

"Captain," Tony turns on Steve, before Peggy can claim definitive victory. "Excellent costume choice."

"Thanks," Steve says, glancing down. "Don't know who this is supposed to be, but thanks."

Tony positively _squawks_ at that, and as he launches into an explanatory tirade Steve glances at his partners with a barely suppressed grin.

Tony realizes maybe thirty seconds into his rant that Steve is trolling him, and he punishes him by playing along, drawing the plot synopsis and his opinions thereof out until they're on the quinjet. It's one of the smaller, quieter birds that will be much easier to disembark discreetly, though Tony makes sure to make a lot of noise leaving, to draw the still-congregated journalists' attention, before abruptly switching to stealth mode.

True to Pepper's word the Faire is only minutes away, using the jet's speed; it takes longer to find a place to land than technically to arrive. Luckily they find a spot that's within reasonable walking distance, for supersoldiers in any case, fairly quickly.

"I put a cabbie in your phone," Tony directs at Steve, before they disembark. "We know him personally. He's a good guy. Discreet. Call him directly when you want to hit the hotel."

"Thank you."

Tony waves his hand dismissively. "Oh, and if you end up doing what I think you're gonna end up doing...keep the costumes."

Steve goes red, Peggy audibly scoffs, and Bucky manages to waggle his eyebrows, which seems to please Tony the most.

*

**_QUINJET LEAVES AVENGERS TOWER; PEPPER POTTS TO RELEASE STATEMENT TONIGHT_ **

**Click to read full article**

Comments

**Yvette Kalla**  
Peggy Carter flees the scene...  
**jared marlon**  
lmao begone thot  
**Tilda Trix**  
Shit, I'd be leaving in stealth mode too. You ever see Cap when he's mad?  
**Hayley Damon**  
@Tilda Trix no wen did u  
**Tilda Trix**  
@Hayley Damon I was in Manhattan when Loki attacked. He's a very scary man when he's fighting. Saw him and AC fight together, actually. It's a shame they're broken up. they looked like they made a good team.  
**Lainey Leroy**  
@Tilda Trix WAIT THEY'RE BROKEN UP????? WE NOW 4 SURE???????  
**Gavin Wolfe**  
@Lainey Leroy they r if caps got any balls. h8 those ppl who r like "oh I luv her shell never do it again" fckin idiots  
**Marjory theNanny**  
@Lainey Leroy noone knows anything rn. Ms. Potts didn't release the statement yet  
**Marjory theNanny**  
@Lainey Leroy noone knows anything rn. Ms. Potts didn't release the statement yet  


**Clem Peregrine**  
And on the left you'll be able to see that mixed marriages don't work and never will  
**Mariabella Francisca Pacheco**  
@Clem Peregrine wtf is that supposed to mean  
**Clem Peregrine**  
It means exactly what I wrote. Though I understand if you have a difficult time comprehending English.  
**Mariabella Francisca Pacheco**  
WOW you're an ugly racist  
**Clem Peregrine**  
How was I being racist? I said I would be understanding if you had a hard time with English. Based on your name, you are Hispanic. Presumably Spanish is your first language. I was being considerate.  
**Mariabella Francisca Pacheco**  
I'm from fucking NJ you bigoted piece of shit **Marleen Purdue**  
@Mariabella Francisca Pacheco there's no need, for profanity  
**Marleen Purdue**  
@Clem Peregrine I agree. The Bible says, not to be unequally yoked, to a nonbeliever (2 Corinthians 6:14). I have seen many, so-called "interfaith marriages" fail, with a lot of tears, and heartache, for everyone involved. Every human being has a soul, however, there are profound differences, between a Christian soul, and a Jewish one, that make them incompatible! Wake up, people!! Interfaith marriage is NOT, in God's plan!!!  
**Mariabella Francisca Pacheco**  
So my profanity is offensive, but his racism isn't? Unreal

ETA: nvm, I saw your second reply. You're an ugly racist, too  
**Jerry WhyDoYouNeedALastName**  
it still blows my mind that ppl let there imaginary friends dictate who they marry  
**Kaylee Aiden**  
@Marleen Purdue is proper punctuation not in God's plan too?  
**Linda Shapiro**  
Um it was the CHRISTIAN partner who cheated. I'd say that CAP was the one who was "unequaly yoked."  


**Vera Renee Morgan**  
Praying for them!!!  
**Jerry WhyDoYouNeedALastName**  
yea bc prayer works, and not, y'know, MARRAGE COUNSELING or anything...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It almost physically pains me to write shorter chapters but I'm committed to this Aesthetic now >.>
> 
> Basing this Faire on the actual NY Renn Faire in Tuxedo Park, and mixing it with PennRenn as well as Sakura Matsuri/Bloomfest and Cooperstown. Also playing a little loose with the terrain, though I do remember there being a lot of open space in Tuxedo Park.


	3. Dressed Up Like a Lovely Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Though this Faire "officially" depicts the year 1593 (when Grace O'Malley and Elizabeth I met) and loosely depicts the English Renaissance as a whole, I'm employing the traditional RenFaire spirit of giving widely varying fucks about historical accuracy, so anything from, like, the 8th-18th centuries (or modern relics relating back to them) is fair game to show up.
> 
> Being pan-Celtic in heritage (Irish, Scottish, AND Welsh!) and rather attached to it, it wounds me that I've severely mitigated the Irish influence on Steve's life (since I cast his paternal grandfather's family being post-Revolutionary War Scots-Irish immigrants, and his maternal family as only having lived in Ireland from about 1892-1904), so I'll be using the chance to remedy that a bit.
> 
>  **TW: Misogyny/slut-shaming; flippant dismissal/treatment of sexual assault; anxiety/intrusive thoughts/PTSD-related sensory overload.** I did my best to describe what it feels like to lose control of your thoughts during a panic attack, which may or may not be triggering depending on how well I did.

The first thing that's hard to get over is how _colorful_ everything is, right from the beginning. The trees are blooms of orange, red, and brown, with some stubborn or perennial green mixed in; it's a bright, clear day, the sky pale blue and speckled with stringy white clouds. Their view from the Tower is of the roofs of the buildings across the street from them, and their windows cast a dark filter over it in any case, so even despite the fact that their suite is covered in plants on the advice of Bucky's doctors, this explosion of natural color is almost dazzling. 

"That's a reasonable attempt at a [Suffolk pink](http://m.fennwright.co.uk/contact-us/news/detail.aspx?url=the-history-behind-suffolk-pink-houses)," Peggy says, sounding mildly impressed; she's referring to the color of the winery at the entrance to the fairgrounds, which has a banner reading WELCOME YE LORDS AND LADIES spreading across the front of it.

"Are you gonna be critiquing the historical accuracy of this the whole time?" Steve asks.

"What? I was being appreciative!"

There's a decent-sized crowd at the entrance, but as it's still fairly early in the day, not a massive one. Their tickets are Skip-the-Line ones, as well, and the ticket-takers barely look up as they scan them into the special entrance, alleviating Bucky's building fear that they'd be made to show their faces in exchange for access.

Minimum security indeed, though. What if someone were to come in with a gun? Or if any of those toy swords that visitors are instructed by signage to visibly secure in scabbards turned out to be real? Someone could sneak in with a _bomb_ if they wanted to, hide it underneath the ridiculously voluminous skirts some of these women are wearing--

Peggy, from two steps ahead, reaches back for Bucky's hand and tugs on it, to get him to start walking again.

"You wanna grab us a map?" Steve offers once Bucky is at their side, pointing in the direction of a purple wooden stand bearing rows of pamphlets about thirty feet away. Bucky's brain has proven to be a tad task-oriented, and it'll appreciate the chance to leave Steve and Peggy in relative safety while it scopes out the immediate surroundings. And indeed, Bucky seems slightly less unnerved by the time he trots back to them with the brochure, having had the opportunity to glance around surreptitiously and find minimal causes for concern. 

Pepper was right; this place _is_ huge, and there'll be more than enough events to keep them occupied even if they don't leave in time to get to the hotel at the dot of 3:00 ("The hell is a joust?" "It's a, it's...two guys on horses runnin' at each other with big sticks." "They're called _lances_. The sticks, not the men. Or horses.") The first, closest thing according to the map is a magic show ("A _Celtic_ magic show, to be precise."), and after sharing glances and shrugs they wander off in that direction. 

It's a small attraction, only necessitating about ten wooden benches arranged before a gazebo. They slip into the second-to-last row as the magician is warming up the crowd, but they don't miss the attention of a little boy who grabs his mother's sleeve, points at Bucky, and loudly whispers "Mommy, look, it's Gandalf!"

Well. That's far preferable to the kid running away in terror. Bucky tries to smile at him without grimacing as the momentary panic fades, and pulls on his left sleeve so it lays better over the cuff of his glove. 

"Just so you know, Gandalf, I work alone," the magician calls out at them, and they try to graciously laugh off the sudden attention. It doesn't stay on them long, thankfully, as the man launches into his performance.

This was a good first pick; it's a stand-up show as much as a magic one, and the magician is big on audience participation. There are jokes that they don't get, not even Steve and Peggy for having been awake for three years, but they can't help but genuinely smile at being taught, with the rest of the crowd, to ooh and ahh upon the direction of his hand gestures. The sleight-of-hand is artful enough to be genuinely entertaining, and one unexpected trick draws a loud, delighted laugh out of Peggy, bringing the magician's eye to her.

"I require a volunteer for my next trick," the magician announces pointedly in her direction. "What say you, my rather-nondescript-compared-to-her-companions lady?"

Peggy allows herself the act of a self-conscious laugh and a glance at her partners. A beat passes that would make declining the invitation more awkward than accepting it, and she rises, pretending not to notice the worried brush of Bucky's fingers against the loose folds of her skirt.

"And might we have your name, my lady?" the magician asks, once Peggy is standing beside him.

"It's Gretchen," Peggy answers, slipping into her flawless New York accent picked up from hanging around so many Americans for the past several waking years of her life.

 _Gretchen_ , Bucky thinks, his brow furrowing even as he claps for Peggy at the magician's prompting. He registers, but can't concentrate on, Peggy helping demonstrate the upcoming trick by showing off the unbroken hoop that he's pressed into her hand. She's used that alias before, and not in the last six months (unless he's forgotten? It always possible...), so this is from _Before_. Probably. He can (safely?) place it between 1943 and 1945; now he just has to let the memory come, try not to chase it down, try not to fit it into something else he knows and risk contaminating it with something false or unrelated.

He almost misses the trick, of Peggy throwing the hoop straight up into the air, and the magician catching it with another supposedly unbroken hoop that he himself holds aloft. The audience claps, and then claps a little harder when the magician gestures to Peggy, and she bows accordingly, extravagantly. Steve laughs, nudging Bucky with his elbow, and Bucky comes back to the moment quick enough to smile for her.

"All right, so I have to ask before you sit back down," the magician addresses Peggy, and she inclines her head curiously. "You're sitting with Gandalf and V for Vendetta, right?" Peggy nods. "So we just have to know...which one of them are you _with_?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," Peggy tosses back, after the chorus of _Ooooooh_ subsides, cutting through the anxious fog that had sprung up around her partners. She makes her way back towards their row amid the crowd's amused disappointment and, seeing that a few people are watching her, squeezes herself in between Steve and Bucky with a small smile that could be described as at least shit-chewing.

"Aw, come _on_ ," the magician goads, allowing everyone a final laugh before moving on with his act, and after a minute Peggy brushes her hand over Bucky's, and it hits him that this is a _date_. They're hiding in plain sight, speaking evasively, giving the barest of touches when the focus is turned away from them; they're on a _date_.

That's a substantially more pleasing way of looking at things than "hiding themselves after fleeing the Tower". Bucky taps her hand with his pinky, and lets himself smile.

The show lasts for about a half hour or so, culminating in a small trick; a straw doll held in the palm of the magician that slowly raises itself to its feet.

"No wires," the magician assures, waving his hand over the doll. "I'm sure there're many of you thinking that there's magnets or some other trick involved, and I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise, but I will say this. Our ancestors believed in the wonder and mystery of the world around them, choosing to call it magic. I invite you all, if only for today, to open your hearts and minds enough to do as well. I invite you all to believe in magic." The straw doll stands fully on its feet; he gives the audience a moment to marvel over the feat before he tosses it up into the air, catches it, and, to the delight of the crowd, opens his hand to reveal it empty. "Thank you! Enjoy your day!"

The audience gives him a final, loud round of applause, and Steve, Peggy, and Bucky remain seated as the rest of the crowd gets to their feet and heads out. The crowd has thinned enough for them to safely make their way out when a tiny voice belonging to the same boy as before calls out "Excuse me! Mr. Gandalf!" from about twenty feet away.

"Ethan, _no_ , don't bother them," his obviously long-suffering mother scolds, hanging onto his hand as he tries to dash away from her. Steve and Peggy look quizzically down at Bucky, who hasn't stood up yet, but he's apparently fine and a little intrigued with the battle of wills playing out between Ethan and his mother, which ends in Ethan's favor when his mother finally walks him towards the object of his fascination.

"Can I have a picture with you?" Ethan asks, as soon as he close enough to not have to yell.

"I'm so sorry," his mother tacks on quickly. "Gandalf is his favorite..."

"Plea~se?" Ethan adds.

"Oh," Peggy says, still in her assumed accent; this was not something they had counted on. "Well..."

"Sure thing, kid," Bucky cuts in, and it's all Steve and Peggy can do to rein in their shock.

"Yay!" 

"Thank you so much," Ethan's mother mumbles, still obviously embarrassed as she raises her phone. Bucky considers for a moment, and then directs Ethan to stand on his right side, so he can drape his flesh arm around the boy's shoulders as the picture is taken. He barely has time to lift his metal arm out of the way when Ethan turns and throws his arms around Bucky in a hug, but he recovers nicely enough to wave good-bye to him as he runs back to his mother.

"...I wasn't expecting you to do that," Steve says, a beat after the mother-son duo leave earshot.

"Feelin' brave all'a sudden," Bucky says nonchalantly, except now the pride in his impulsive confidence is starting to fall away, replaced by nerves that he might have compromised them, or--he's mortified to realize is _worse yet_ to him--displeased Steve and Peggy. "I mean, the kid's _probably_ not Hydra. Mom either. And I'm in costume, right? Not like they're gonna show anyone the picture and have 'em recognize me. And..." He digs the toe of his shoe into the ground. "I dunno. It was a kid. I didn't wanna be a jerk and say "no" and ruin his day for no reason."

He can't help but flinch a little when he feels Steve's hand on his shoulder, even though it comes slowly and lightly, and he reaches up to catch Steve's hand before Steve can think he doesn't welcome the touch.

"That was real good of you, Buck."

"They do seem to gravitate towards you," Peggy says matter-of-factly, comfortable enough in their isolation to slip back into her natural accent. "Children. Romy certainly did, at least."

 _That's_ where "Gretchen" is from; Peggy used that name in Germany, when the pair of them were traveling with Rosemarie. His Romy-girl. Germans have weird nicknames. He carried her a lot, because he was supposed to be hard of hearing from the bombs and mute from the shock so he let Gretchen do all the talking when they met someone on the road while he minded their daughter. _I'm not letting you fuckers hurt another one of my kids._

"Buck?" Steve asks, after Bucky's eyes drift wide. "You all right?"

"Affirm--yes," Bucky says, yanking his mind back to the present a little too late to save his partners from getting concerned.

"Do you want to leave?"

"No. _No,_ I'm...I just thought of something. I don't know where it's from, if it's a..." He will not say _daydream_. _Daydream_ is one step away from _malfunction_ and he doesn't do that; he's not a machine in need of recalibration. "I don't remember the...circumstances surrounding it. It's okay. It'll come. I don't want to leave."

"All right, darling, we won't go unless you want to," Peggy says, in just the right tone to welcome that decision. He can slip, when he's anxious, back into the Soldier awaiting orders or discipline or _maintenance_ ; he's been managing today surprisingly well so far, and she doesn't want to push him on any point.

Which he knows, so he compromises. "Let's get some water. 'N' walk around a bit."

He makes sure to let Steve help him up. He doesn't need to _remember_ that Steve likes that sort of thing--he makes it abundantly clear every day--but it pleases him that he does.

*

"It's Gandalf!"

This is about the tenth time they've heard as much in the past hour and a half. There've been a few "Sweet V costume!"s peppered in from teenage boys, and one "I like your dress!" from a little girl dressed in a Belle costume, but Gandalf Bucky seems to be the man of the hour.

And, much to all three of their surprises, he's _loving_ it, as much as he possibly can.

"Was he always like this?" Peggy whispers to Steve, after an adolescent girl dressed as Tauriel runs up to give Bucky a high-five, and he not only returns it rather enthusiastically, she can tell he's smiling underneath the fake beard after the girl runs off. 

"... _yeah_ ," Steve says, casting his mind back to all the covert dates they'd had in the 30s, buried underneath group outings with Bucky's on-good-terms acquaintances from his high school and, later, friends from college; or protected by the dancing partners Bucky had managed to pick up. "Since we were in our teens or so." Growing up had transformed Bucky from one of the more insular people Steve knew to one of the more social, not just to better hide their relationship, but because he seemed to genuinely enjoy the attention; both what he was given and what he himself gave.

It hadn't made him any less lonely, though--Bucky even admitted once that Steve was the only loyalty he knew outside of his family--which is why Steve bites his lip against smiling at the sight of Bucky returning the thumbs-up of a family theme-dressed as wizards and witches, and has to stop himself from reaching for Bucky's hand and pulling him back, into the safety of Steve's shadow.

Though actually. It's the modern era now, and he's seen two women kissing while pushing a joint baby stroller already, and a couple of these shops are selling rainbow magnets and pins with phrases like _Ask me about my pronouns!_ , so...

Bucky's obviously seen the same things, because after the initial small start at the unexpected touch to his metal hand, he's genuinely happy to lace their fingers together.

There's only so much acceptance to go around, though, and they know it, so Peggy slips her arm around Steve's like she's a third wheel, and hopes no one looks hard enough to see which two of them are wearing wedding rings.

Thankfully, the crowd seems too engrossed in the Faire to notice them much, beyond commenting on their costumes. Peggy makes sure to break away from them a few times, nonetheless; such as when they happen across a pirate ship, in whose belly vendors are selling an assortment of swords and, more practically, knives.

"Can't have too many of those," she informs her men, and when "nipping inside to have a look" lasts longer than ten minutes, the pair of them seek her leave to acquire lunch. She's only found one that she deems worthy to be used at work by the time Steve returns to fetch her, and when they come to the table Bucky had sworn up and down he'd be fine waiting at for a few minutes alone, they find that he's consented to another picture with a young wizard.

"He thought I was Dumbledore?" Bucky questions, as the kid runs off.

"Different book series."

"And what am I supposed to do with this?" Peggy asks, eyeing the pumpkin-shaped loaf of bread sitting on a paper plate in front of her.

Bucky reaches over with a plastic spoon and pushes the "lid" to the bread, cut away from the rest of the loaf, out of the way, revealing the soup inside.

"Ha! Well, that's clever," Peggy says, sounding genuinely delighted by her bread bowl as she takes the spoon from Bucky. Hers is a beef stew, and she also sneaks a bite of Steve's "Aztec" bowl, a vegetable stew so named, apparently, because it's spicy.

Bucky has the same as Steve, and he picks at it at a slower rate than his partners eat theirs. The various spells and experiments that had been applied to him over the years hadn't left him with the same voracious zest for caloric intake, and decades of being fed through various medical-grade tubes haven't been undone by six months of eating _mostly_ like a human being (it took weeks for him to be able to eat without the fear of vomiting being a quite reasonable concern, and every once in awhile since then he's gravitated back towards a liquid diet). So he plays with his food, measuring careful bites that he lets sit on his tongue for a second or two before swallowing, eyeing the knife Peggy's bought where it sits by her non-dominant hand.

Peggy notices where his eye is, and slowly slides the implement across the table towards him.

He knows where every weapon in their suite is stored, or hidden as the case may be, but he doesn't touch them and avoids even looking in their direction. Even without the chair, even if no one's dared to utter a single one of his codewords outside of ERP sessions, even if since the Zemo incident he's never once forgotten who he is or who they are, he doesn't trust himself.

That has to change.

"See how the blade locks?" she says, picking the knife up to show him. "You have to hold this part down, and press right here," she demonstrates, "to get it to open." She closes and opens the knife again, and then turns the blade towards herself, the handle towards him. "Here. Have a look, darling."

Bucky looks at Steve, who does his best to look away nonchalantly, as if this is no big deal. He looks back at Peggy, who doggedly holds the knife out to him; he can see the seriousness of her eyes behind her mask, and the impulse to make her happy urges him to reach out and take the knife from her hand.

He closes it immediately, but the fact that he took it at all is a win.

They start to take their time, talking around bites; discussing the magic show and some of the more interesting wares they've seen around the grounds so far. Steve had wound up with the map at some point, and he spreads it out to the side of their lunch, leading them in considering what they want to do next. Bucky is intently listening to Steve and Peggy discuss the relative merits of an acrobatic show versus the archery demonstration (the latter is more relevant to their interests, but honestly they have Clint for that sort of thing) when they're approached by a young lady with elegant face paint, dressed in a velvet, maroon approximation of a belly dancer's outfit.

"Excuse me, but I couldn't help but notice," she says by way of introduction. "You seem to be good with your hands," she continues, pointing to Bucky, and all of them are suddenly aware how he's been half-consciously flipping the closed knife between and around his fingers as they talk. "We're having a demonstration of, well, the same thing, but with balls," her other hand, hidden below the table, pops up to reveal a translucent sphere, slightly bigger than her fist might have been, perched delicately atop the back of her fingers, "--haha, balls, yes, I know--if you're interested."

They actually hadn't noticed the double entendre, and sex humor is still mostly over Bucky's head despite living around Tony, so his glance at his partners for their opinion is entirely earnest and slightly confused. Their own, especially Steve's, is a little embarrassed, but they recover quickly enough to shrug at him. "We can."

"Great! We will be over there," the girl points to a spot in a clearing not too far away, "once you're ready."

She flounces off to try to rustle up more participants among the picnickers. Now with a reason to hurry, the three of them finish up eating and wander over to where she had indicated, where two other similarly-dressed women are already demonstrating their tricks to a small party of girls and their chaperones. They get over Gandalf and V in relatively short order, letting all of them concentrate on learning the small party tricks the women have to teach.

True to prediction, Bucky picks up the tricks easily; where the other Faire-goers have to go scrambling after their dropped balls, Bucky manages the balancing act on the back of his fingers on the first try, and the flip from there to his palm on the second, the lag owing to the fact that a sphere is different than a knife.

"Everyone, watch how he does it," the lady who recruited him directs the others, and behind his fake beard Bucky keeps his grin tiny as he repeats the trick a few times for an audience. The teachers exclaim over him a little bit more before moving on to help the other students, and Bucky, as much as he can considering his disguise, downright _preens_.

"Should we be jealous?" Peggy asks, sidling close to him after the demonstration runs its short course, and Bucky finagles buying a sphere for a wink, a picture, and a dollar less than the going price.

"You guys get the same outfits _they're_ wearing, you won't have to be," Bucky returns under his breath.

Peggy's jaw drops, but her little gasp of shock sounds covertly pleased. "Well! Look who's got cheeky now, all of a sudden."

Bucky hums, giving her the chance to say she doesn't like it; when no such reproach comes he lets himself enjoy his boldness, especially when Steve elbows him approvingly and takes his hand again.

There's another stretch of little shops and attractions on their way, starting with an enclosure of so-called "Royal Falcons" that include a few other birds of prey; all rescue animals, so Bucky stuffs the dollar he'd saved, and twenty others, into the donation box before they wander off. It occurs to Peggy that they ought to get a gift for Pepper, as a thank-you for the tickets, and for Tony for dropping them off; an opportunity presents itself in the form of Tree Fairies, a cute, minor feat of engineering that creates pixie puppets out of whittled sticks and strings. 

"Tony'll have a suit for these two by tomorrow, watch," Steve says, once a pair of them are bagged up.

Peggy narrowly avoids being steered into a store selling skimpy tops and tie-on skirts decorated with silver disks and bells, swatting at her men, a blush peeking out from the bottom of her mask. Steve, on the other hand, has to be pulled away from a store advertising itself as selling moccasins--

"Those aren't moccasins. Those are just regular boots."

"Steve..."

"I'm just saying, don't call them moccasins if they're not moccasins. Don't...isn't that illegal now, anyway? They're not allowed to do that."

"Yes, but these people are probably just cashiers; I don't think they can do anything about it."

"Here, Steve, I got the business card; you can report them when we get home."

"When did you...?"

\--and begrudgingly allows himself to be distracted by the cheer of a crowd on the other side of this line of attractions. They hike over the small hill and set themselves up near a tree to catch the spectacle; a platform meant to represent a dais, on which sit actors obviously portraying Queen Elizabeth and her court, looks over a huge chessboard laying on the ground, on which a group of actors and civilian volunteers are set up like pieces. A more plainly dressed woman, with a few attendants, cheat out to the audience on the ground to the side of the board.

It's hard to make out even with their enhanced hearing, considering shoddy microphones and wind resistance, but it would appear that the pirate lady Grace O'Malley has, on her diplomatic mission to the English court, initiated a "friendly" game of human chess with the Queen, which entails actual battles when two pieces meet.

The first skirmish they witness involves two little kids chosen from the audience gaining the staged upper hand over a court jester. The next battle, between Grace's first mate and an obviously shady knight in Elizabeth's employ, features some actually impressive fight choreography that lasts for the better part of three minutes, ending in the first mate's favor despite the knight's attempts to fight dirty.

"You applaud that?" Steve teases, keeping his voice low and unoverhearable, when Peggy claps along with the half of the crowd that's sided with Ireland.

"Well Sir Whomever is clearly a very bad man," Peggy defends herself. Vindication comes when the next battle, between a pirate and Elizabeth's chief lady-in-waiting, ends with an English victory, but her attempt to sing "Rule, Brittania / Brittania rule the waves..." without giggling and squirming are thwarted by both her partners pinching her on either side over and over.

They straighten themselves out enough for Bucky to steal Peggy's phone out of her dress pocket and record the next battle (again ending for England), explaining that "You guys should set this up in the Tower, next time you can get everyone together."

"Yeah, that sounds like fun," Steve says, without a hint of sarcasm, and Bucky tries not to beam too obviously because _Steve_ and _fun_ aren't seen together often enough.

The first mate's next battle is rudely interrupted by Sir Whomever, leading to the Queen calling off the chess match and the first mate challenging the knight to a proper duel on the jousting field to settle their score. A few more barbs are traded between sides before the Queen's chamberlain steps forward, announcing with the help of better projection that the joust will be held at "Five-of-the-clock! God save the Queen!"

"God save the Queen!" Peggy calls back along with the rest of the England-aligned crowd. 

"So are we sticking around for this joust?" Steve asks, as the rest of the crowd begins to pick themselves up and disperse. "Or are we... _buggering off_ , as you British people say?"

"Well _I'm_ enjoying myself," Peggy grins. 

"I am, too," Bucky says, squeezing Steve's hand. 

There's a split-second where they both think that Steve's going to argue, or press Bucky on whether he _really_ wants to stay. Instead, happily, he brandishes the map and says, "Good. "Cause I kinda wanna go ride the camel."

*

The camel ride is an interesting experience, and somewhat of a lengthy one, as one camel decides he's had enough and has to be removed from circulation, and they themselves have to be split up due to weight restrictions. At the end of it all they agree that it was at least a cool story to tell their friends, and wander off to the stage they had seen from astride their camels, where a two-person, one-cat, and an-indeterminate-number-of-rats gymanastic/comedy act has started up. ("That's nothing," Bucky says good-naturedly, when the contortionist gets her cat to jump onto her vertically upstretched feet. "Get two cats to do that without the promise of a treat, and then we'll talk.") After that act clears away, they're replaced by a small band heralding the entrance of the women that they had met before, who in addition to teaching parlor tricks apparently are, as their outfits suggested, belly dancers.

"You could do that," Steve whispers the Peggy, three dances into the act when the routine has gotten both sexier and more dangerous, by virtue of the introduction of swords. Peggy scoffs, both dismissive of his fantasy and letting him know that she could, indeed, do that if she wished. 

She gets her chance when the act ends, and the lead dancer invites members of the audience to come up and freestyle while the band jams. Steve glances over at Bucky, their sneak attack coordinated silently and instantly, and in a moment of distraction Peggy finds herself suddenly forcibly nudged and jostled onto her feet and towards the stage.

"You little brats--"

"Come on up!" one of the dancers calls, beckoning her eagerly; another dancer notices and joins in, and Peggy, now caught in the net of polite obligation, decides a good compromise is to stick her hand out firmly towards her partners, asking-demanding that at least one of them join her.

Bucky takes her hand before Steve can finish refusing.

It obviously surprises her that he accepts the invitation so readily, but she's equally happy that he's done so, so she keeps mum as they step up onto the platform together. He does move them to the furthest corner of upstage right, letting the little kids and young ladies take up center stage and the audience's focus, but she's giddy and grateful for any progress at all (and there's _so much_ progress he's made today; maybe now he can start leaving the Tower, maybe of his own volition, maybe _on his own_ ). And God, it's so _nice_ to dance with Bucky again; to acclimate to unfamiliar music at the same time and still have their senses of rhythm match up, to be spun under his arm and pulled closer, her back to his chest, his hands at her waist, his breath in her ear, rooted and moving together at the hips; to have Steve watching them with an eye that's worshipful and artistic all at once, taking a picture in lieu of drawing them only because he doesn't have his sketchbook with him.

It's almost a little sad, and certainly a little disappointing, when the music and the spell ends; Bucky rescues the mood from dropping completely by escorting Peggy off the stage with gallant aplomb, and keeping the energy up until they're seated next to Steve again. There isn't another act scheduled on this stage for another hour, according to the map-schedule, but they stay huddled together on the bench for at least ten minutes after the dancers and audience clear out anyway, the cloak of Steve's costume spread out across their backs as if sheltering them from the encroaching autumn afternoon cold, instead of cordoning off a moment for them out of space and time that's actually _pleasant_ for once.

And they come out of it with _verve_ , too; not the usual melancholic exhaustion that comes with disappearing from the world for a few minutes. Steve gets to his feet with a vivacity that they haven't seen since Bucky and Peggy came back to the SSR safe and whole and in the early stages of love, saying that there are more grown-up souvenir vendors, according to the map, that he wants to see--paintings and engravings, ceramics and glasswork. There's a glassbower they spend upwards of ten minutes watching as he turns molten glass into water globes with Celtic knot designs etched into them, and they walk away with one of them; they're sorely tempted to buy a drink pitcher handmade of beautiful speckled blue clay, and promise to think about it. Steve plants himself by a small pavilion where artists are doing facepainting, to study their technique while Peggy and Bucky fetch plastic cups of mead and moscato from a nearby bar-stall (the alcohol does nothing, but the sweetness is appreciated), and they come back to be presented with two bronze roses, sprinkled with light perfume, that Steve had gotten from a passing seller while they waited in line. 

"You were not this smooth before," Bucky says, poking Steve in the arm with the tip of the stem. "I don't remember, I just _know_."

The mask shifts in a way that tells Bucky that Steve is making a face at him. 

They get the chance to return the favor when a vendor they pass by asks if they'd like to hatch a dragon, and the question is so bizarre that they're caught by it. After the concept is explained to them, Bucky and Peggy insist on each picking out a styrofoam ball that's going to get crushed by a round metal weight, to reveal the slip of paper proclaiming prize to be won inside. The first "egg" hatches into a tiny statue of a fairy--Steve promptly gives it to a nearby little girl--but the second yields one of the smaller dragon toys. It's a cute little contraption that they urge Steve into picking out, a sculpture of a squirrel-inspired dragon with wings made out of velvet, attached to a long pulley with a toggle that, when pressed or twisted, makes the dragon nod and shake its head respectively. It's meant to be strung through the collar of the owner's shirt and down their sleeve, to aid the illusion of a real animal sitting on a shoulder, and though it takes some finagling they manage it without knocking Steve's mask askew.

There's still about a half hour or so before the joust, and Peggy's been eyeing up the space set aside for amateur archers to hit a nearby target. Steve looks intrigued by it as well, and Bucky says he'll be fine wandering the general vicinity while they're so engaged. There's a set-up across the dirt path called the Bewitchin' Kitchen that's selling packages of herbs and bottles of cooking oils, and maybe he can find something fancy to add to dinner this week.

He squeezes past a group of teenagers that are loitering near the entrance to the booth, which is the only reason he's paying enough attention to them to notice when one of them, a girl, brandishes her phone at her friends and says, "So they're trying to say those pictures are fake. Photoshop jobs."

...They could be talking about anything. It's rude to eavesdrop, besides. His mother would scold. (Would she?)

"Are you serious?" one of her girl friends asks, and the first girl hands her phone over for scrutiny as Bucky occupies himself with the glass jars of spices on display. Allspice, caraway, cardamom, cinnamon, coriander...

"They're so full of shit," one of their companions, a boy this time, laughs. Cumin, fennel seed, garlic, ginger... "They might as well've just said she tripped and fell on his face with her mouth."

Loomi. That's new. He's never heard of that before, all these other spices he's seen in the past six months, except for fennel, but that sounds familiar _ish_ and that's good, that's a win for his long-term memory.

"I told you guys," a third girl grins. "That girl is a ho."

" _Fo' sho'_ ," the rest of them chorus, and Bucky can't get into a fight here because Peggy'd say she can defend her own honor, she's infuriatingly like Steve that way, and he could very easily kill them if he tried or even if he didn't, and it'd blow their cover in any case, so a flippant voice in his brain directs him to try to figure out if he knows what they're quoting. It sounds like they're quoting something. He's watched a lot of movies in the past few months.

"I don't get it, you know?" the first girl says. Fennel seed, garlic, ginger, loomi, nutmeg, ginger seed, garlic, nutmeg. "I mean, she's married to _Captain America_ , all right? Literally the most doable man in the entire world."

There's a warm sensation at the back of Bucky's neck that's at terrible odds with the growing pit in his stomach. Nutmeg, oregano, papri-paprika. 

"How can you be married to Steve Goddamn Rogers, okay, and then look at his frickin' _sidekick_ and be all--" 

Oregano, paprika, rosemary, rosemary, Rosemarie of all the queens that ever lived...

"-- _Hmm, you know what, I can eat some Grade-A American beef whenever I want, but nah, I would really rather fuck everyone at Hydra's sloppy seconds_?"

Her group of friends erupt in a noise of mixed shocked and amusement, a scandalized but insincere "You can't _say_ stuff like that!" emerging and being met by a defiant sticking-out of the tongue. Someone calls them from a few feet away and they wander off, completely unaware of the statuesque, wild-eyed man they've left in their wake.

"Sir?" a stall attendant asks. "Do you need any help?"

He isn't

He is _no one's_

He's not, he's not, he's

"Sir?"

But this is why he doesn't leave the Tower, shouldn't have left the Tower, should have contented himself with hiding in the bathroom, because the whole fucking world has seen reports and pictures and footage that he won't look at because he knows Steve and Peggy don't want him to, because any asshole with internet connection knows him better, deeper, more intimately than he will _ever_ know himself again and he could kill them if he tried or even if he didn't, don't think like that you are not Hydra's asset, you are not Hydra you are _not_ Hydra's today was going so well. They were so happy. They were _so_ happy.

"Sir? You all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he says, like he actually is, because he doesn't have to give mission reports anymore and normal people tell white lies even though his doctors really appreciate his honesty; it makes everything so much easier. "Just...thinking."

"Okay, well let me know if there's anything I can help you with," the attendant says, already drifting away, not noticing the way his gaze goes skyward and his eyes blink a little too quickly and his throat hurts so bad it's getting harder to breathe and _no_ , today can't end like this, they were having so much fun even if he doesn't deserve it even though he _does_ because none of it was his fault, none of it was what he wanted and he was incapable of refusing literally he was incapable of refusing there was nothing he could have done he was incapable of refusing. Allspice caraway cardamom everyone at Hydra's caraway cardamom cardamom cardamom everyone at Hydra's sloppy seconds what does loomi taste like? Everyone at Hydra. They were so happy.

Someone brushes up against him and he shifts; he steps away when that person's companion tries to squeeze into the space between him. He could kill them if he tried or even if he didn't, so he wraps the bag of souvenirs that he's been carrying around his left hand, to hinder it. Thought-stopping. That's what he needs to do. Not thought-suppressing, because they _want_ to be thought about and the more he struggles the more he'll lose. Anxiety feeds anxiety. Let them pass through, like cars, like clouds. Don't fight them. He was incapable of refusing. _Damn it._ This isn't like that; the principle isn't the same. Breathe. Breathe like they taught you, like you used to have to help Steve do. Remember that? Do you really? Eight in, eight out. Eight in, hold four, seven out?

Years pass in minutes like this until Steve and Peggy come to fetch him, and he has enough of a handle on himself (because he's made so much progress _everyone at Hydra_ in the past six months; there haven't been therapists and neurologists and medications and Steve and Peggy all this time for there to be nothing to show for it) that he can smile at them.

"Find anything?" Steve asks, and Bucky doesn't trust himself to try to speak again just yet so he shakes his head and shrugs like a normal person would. They expect that he'll be quiet sometimes.

"We're thinking we should head over now," Peggy says, with a flush of mild adrenaline that through all the mess he's happy to see. 

"'Kay," he says, and it comes out entirely unsuspicious, thank God. If he clings a little hard to Steve's hand as they walk, well, they've been physically close this whole day; Steve'll think it's just enthusiasm driving it. They'd been so happy. And they still can be.

They'd been too distracted with the Faire to really think about how popular an attraction the joust must be, and probably three-fourths of all the visitors are crowded near the jousting field by the time they arrive. Luckily it's set in a bit of a valley, so even the back of the crowd can see, courtesy of the small hill. This is good, a temporary distraction. He can worry and obsess later. That's what they say to do, right? Constantly put it off until it goes away, until you forget about it.

The Faire's clearly put a lot of thought into the blocking and the storyline, if the characters are a bit one-note. It's a good distraction, an engaging one, even if every smack of a lance against a shield is a bit too loud and jarring even from this distance. It helps when both men are unhorsed and they switch from lances to swords, which are much quieter, though the sound of steel smacking and sliding against each other is grating enough to send something like a chill up his arms and spine. It's with mixed gladness that he greets the ending of the show, when Sir Whomever is defeated.

The stray thought that the battle was over too soon, however, proves correct, because Sir Whomever suddenly rises from the ground and announces his real plot: to use the occasion to kill both Elizabeth and Grace, seizing the throne of England and eliminating a threat to the empire at the same time. Certainly a good reason for the two women to join their forces, and the two-person joust turns into a melee between Sir Whomever's rebels and those loyal to their respective queens.

This is fine. The fight choreography is actually quite good but it's still visibly choreography, there's obviously no bloodshed, and the men the audience are meant to sympathize with are all coming out on top in their respective fights. This is fine.

Then there's a _boom_ , and part of the stage falls away in a burst of flame as a stage-magic cannonball hits it, and the thought to _radio B Company; tell them we need cover_ fills up Bucky's brain.

Steve feels a harsh tug on his arm that almost unbalances him with its forcefulness, and he glances down in time to see Bucky's other hand reach across him, aiming for Peggy's wrist. Bucky had only just stopped himself from dragging Steve to the ground, struggling to stay where he is instead of seventy-two years in the past because Hydra is not here, no one is coming for him, no one is going to take him away and they are safe even though Hydra could be anywhere. Natasha released the files but not everything got published before she had to evacuate and not everyone has been caught, and when you cut off one head two more take its place, they could be anywhere they are _everywhere_ , always, all the time.

"Peggy."

"We're going. Come on, darling, we're--" There's another explosion, and Bucky flinches hard enough to stumble into someone else. "It's all right, darling, we're fine. Everything's all right. Steve--"

Steve has manuevered himself to the front of their little line, hustling a path through the crowd of even later comers that had gathered around them. Thankfully there's not that many, and they're on the dirt path leading to and from the field within a few seconds. They huddle together, now that there are fewer gazes to question around and they're in no fit state to care about any that might have existed; Bucky is starting to shiver and the day is only getting steadily colder as the sun sets.

If they were at home, they would put him in his old bedroom, now something of a storage space-cum-kitty playground, and let the cats curl up against his side or in his lap while they coaxed tea or coffee down his throat. There are no cats here, but Steve remembers an exhibit called the Royal Hounds listed on the map, and its location, thankfully not very far away and still open. Bucky is still at least partly with them, judging by the way he's clinging to their hands rather than limply letting himself be manhandled, and once they're at the exhibit--a small, fenced-in space whose frontispiece is lined with a cushioned bench for visitors to kneel on--Steve is able to surreptitiously guide Bucky's hand out, to pet the dogs, while Peggy engages the keeper in conversation to distract him from noticing anything odd about the situation.

"They're all rescues," the keeper explains, when Peggy asks where they acquire the dogs. "People use 'em in racing, but they're driven so hard, they only last a couple years. Then the owner's got no use for 'em, so..."

 _Hey, and you know, once this is over we've got no need for your boyfriend anymore_ , Peggy can hear Rumlow taunting her; there's a twenty dollar bill in her pocket, and she pops it into their donation box.

Hydra did use dogs, but not around the Soldier. There were attempts, early on, at having their Asset train attack dogs; these resulted in him "relapsing" towards his natural personality, enough to attack his own handler when the man kicked one of the dogs, and the project was abandoned. Later, even with the advancements made to the mindwipe machine, Hydra had since recognized the Soldier's value as a ghost story, and elected to leave him in cryo full-time between missions. Steve recalled this from the files he and Peggy had forced themselves to read, and he knows that Bucky doesn't remember those dogs from sixty-odd years ago, so he gambled, and it pays off; without Hydra's shadow tainting the dogs, Bucky's movements are starting to melt from weak and jerking into something much smoother, if still a little hesitant and tremulous. 

There haven't been therapists and neurologists and medications and Steve and Peggy all this time for there to be nothing to show for it.

But there is, also, an autumn evening settling with its very own autumn breeze, and when Bucky shivers it's visible to everyone, including the keeper.

"It's cold all of a sudden, isn't it?" Peggy asks, wrapping her arms around herself and drawing the keeper's attention back to her. "There a place we can get something hot to drink?"

"There's a food stall around the corner, I think they got hot chocolate."

"That sounds _amazing_. I'll be right back."

"We're gonna start packing up now," the keeper says. Dammit. "But this structure," he taps a post belonging thereto, "is gonna stay up, so if you wanna sit and wait for your friend, you can," he directs at Steve and Bucky.

"Thanks," Steve says on both of their behalfs; Bucky's present enough to make an appreciative noise as he scratches behind one of the dog's ears.

"I'll be right back," Peggy repeats, to make sure Bucky hears her and hopefully understands, on a visceral level, that she isn't a figment of his imagination that can disappear at Hydra's whim. 

"'Kay," he responds, which is understanding enough, and permission for her to go.

The dogs notice the commotion of their keeper and his assistant beginning to pack up, and so move towards the back of their pen somewhat abruptly. Bucky's hand hovers in the air where a dog used to be for just a beat too long, but he's able to bring it back to his side by himself, before Steve has to do it for him, and he can turn around without help, too, so he can sit on the bench now, instead of kneeling.

"'m sorry," he mumbles when Steve turns and sits likewise.

"It's okay," Steve says immediately, carefully putting an arm around Bucky's shoulders. "It was...it started to sound a little too much like...to me too."

Bucky leans numbly into Steve's side, and both of them lapse into quiet observation of the calming world around them. Across the road there's a small band of young women setting up a sign that reveals them as members of a college all-female choir, and an acoustic guitar that compounds the fact. The leader of the group steps forward to announce their presence and purpose, mainly to Steve and Bucky but also to the smattering of people who weren't interested in the joust and mill about the remaining opened exhibits; she reveals the name of the first song, and steps back into the ensemble just as Steve raises an eyebrow at it.

"[Óró, sé do bheatha bhaile / óró, sé do bheatha bhaile / óró, sé do bheatha bhaile / anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh!](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKxJk0G-r9w)"

"I know this," Steve says, as the chorus echoes the soloist's first lines. "Why do I know this?"

"I don't," Bucky mumbles. "Sorry, I'm no help..."

He's present enough to be sardonic, so that's good; Steve jostles him a little.

"Sé do bheatha, a bhean ba léanmhar / do bé ár gcreach tú bheith i ngéibhinn / do dhúiche bhreá i seilbh meirleach / 's tú díolta leis na Gallaibh!"

The tune is familiar, but Steve definitely doesn't recognize the lyrics, and there's only maybe one word that he recognizes. His grandmothers had been the musically-inclined members of the family, Bobeh in particular, and he can remember her in the apartment and in the markets or at her employer's piano after she snuck Steve in for a music lesson, singing whatever struck her fancy that day, whether English or Yiddish or Irish. But she had died when he was eight years old, and so much of what she sang or said or did is lost to him now.

It's okay, he tells himself as he bites the inside of his cheek against the regret. Like they assure Bucky all the time, it's normal, acceptable, all right to forget some things. And like Sam told them months ago, things you lose can come back to you. The proof of that is right next to him.

The chorus is familiar, at least, and repetetive, so by the time the song ends Steve can hum-sing it in his chest, and Bucky lets go of his hand so he can applaud for them. 

"Here we are, gentlemen," Peggy's voice says from above them, and they lift their heads in tandem, both wondering if she's been standing there long. She's finagled holding three styrofoam cups, two of which she hands down to them, Bucky first and then Steve, and she manages to not spill the third as she sits down and squishes herself into the remaining space on the bench.

The group launches into something much more light-hearted, a modern fantasy-themed song about a gentleman in love with a mermaid that causes Steve to spit out his drink when they sing about how he "gets his tail". That nets a laugh from Bucky, at least, and from Peggy too, and they both applaud loudly when the song is over. The group is clearly very appreciative for the attention, and the leader is smiling when she announces their next selection.

"This song hails from Scotland, and describes the thoughts of a soldier as he leaves home," she explains. "We call it Lochaber No More on our album, which is available for purchase," she points to a basket near their sign, "but it's also known as Farewell to Lochaber. We hope you enjoy."

She steps back into the ensemble, and this time the guitarist apparently gets the solo, as she takes a small step away from the rest of the group to distinguish herself.

"[Farewell to Lochaber; farewell to my Jean](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=adE8q7ytqV4)," she sings, after gently plucking the intro, and it's Bucky's turn for his ears to proverbially prick up, for him to chew on his lip as he tries to place this. "Where heartsome with her I have many days been / For Lochaber no more, Lochaber no more / We'll maybe return to Lochaber no more."

"These tears that I shed, they are all for my dear," the rest of the singers join in, splitting into a simple two-part harmony. "And not for the dangers attending on wier / Though borne on rough seas to a far distant shore..."

"Am I," Bucky says quietly, and both Steve and Peggy turns their heads to look at him, "am I...were my folks Scottish?"

"Yeah," Steve whispers back. "Yeah, your ma came over on the boat when she was a kid. Still had her accent, sometimes, when she was riled up enough."

"Okay." Bucky nods, his cheek rubbing against Steve's shoulder, his relief almost palpable. "Okay, good."

"Why, does this one feel familiar?" Peggy asks, dropping her free hand onto Bucky's wrist and squeezing it.

Lots of things feel _familiar_ : glints of light that warn of clandestine guns; sitting too close to an air conditioner and feeling the first chill of cryo run up his spine; a raised hand or voice that always seems aimed at him. This...

"Feels _real_ ," Bucky murmurs.

"It is," Steve breathes, praying Bucky feels every ounce of certainty in his body. "It's real, Buck." He knows because Winifred had sat with him a few times when he was truly, dangerously sick, to let Sarah at least lay down for awhile even if sleep remained elusive, and he can remember, through the haze of foggy-headed illness, snatches of her untrained but pretty voice as she tried to comfort him like she would one of her own children.

"...There's nothing like leaving my love on that shore / To leave thee behind me, my heart is so pained / But by ease that's inglorious no fame can be gained / And beauty and love's the reward of the brave / And I maun deserve it before I can crave."

"Then glory, my Jeannie, maun plead my excuse," the soloist takes over, as Steve and Peggy hear the soft vibration of Bucky brokenly trying to hum the tune. "Since honor commands me, how can I refuse? / Without it I ne'er can have merit for thee / And losing thy favor I'd better not be."

"I go then, my lass, to win honor and fame," the group joins in again. "And if I should chance to come glorious home / I'll bring a heart to thee with love running o'er / And then I'll leave thee and Lochaber no more."

The guitarist delicately strums the song out, and the people around them politely applaud. The three of them are silent, though, as all of their hands are occupied, and their minds as well.

"You ready to head out?" Steve asks as the group shuffles in preparation of their next song, because it's easier than trying to tell Bucky that he never had to prove anything to Steve, not one single goddamn thing, not ever. "Things are...it looks like everything's shutting down, anyway."

"Hmm," is what he gets out of Bucky, and an "All right," from Peggy. 

They finish their drinks first, so as to not appear rude to the performers, and stand in between the completion of their fourth song and the start of their fifth and final selection. They're about five feet away from where they started when Bucky stops them, asks them to wait, and goes back, dropping ten dollars into the basket in exchange for one of the group's CDs.

"[...And all the harm that e'er I've done / Alas, it was to none but me](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q4egb2gpIg4)," the duet sings in harmony, as Bucky hurries back to his partners and slips in between them, all three uncaring of whoever might question their closeness now that they're leaving. "And all I've done for want of wit / To mem'ry now I can't recall / So fill to me the parting glass..."

"Good night, and joy be with you all," the rest of the chorus joins, softly.

He grips their hands tighter, as tightly as he can without causing them pain, and commits the refrain to hope, even dearer than memory, as they make their way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I actually went back to NY RenFaire this year and WOW did it change, everything was very cramped compared to the last time I was there nine years ago. So if you're familiar just pretend the layout hasn't changed very much in the past decade. I'm mixing in stuff from PenRen anyway, so the landscape was supposed to be different in any case. 
> 
> Some [pictures](https://instagram.com/p/BaD7O13ntoR/) for reference wrt the magician, the muscle memory demo, and the belly dancers. You may need to open in the app to see all three. 
> 
> My dad has a Gandalf costume that he wears to RenFaire, and this year he got at least a dozen variations of "Hey, it's Gandalf!" (and a couple "It's Dumbledore!"s) and two different families asked for him to take pictures with their kids.
> 
> It actually _is_ [illegal](https://www.doi.gov/iacb/act) to misrepresent your goods as being Native American-made. This is irksome to me, as well (though I'm a lot less than the 1/4 Native I write Steve as being). Honestly, I love Faire, but the cultural appropriation can be pretty bad >.>
> 
> There'll be a bit more on Oro Se Do... next chapter, but Steve doesn't recognize the lyrics because the version being sung is modern! OSDBB has a couple different versions, being a folk song (actually, it's a couple folk songs mashed together), but the one he vaguely remembers is from the 1700s and is about Prince Charlie battling for the English throne; the Irish and Scottish, being under English control at the time, preferred him over the Puritan usurpers then in charge. The new lyrics were written by Irish nationalist Padraig Pearse in the early 1900s to extol Grace O'Malley, an Irish folk hero, rather than a foreign prince. Steve's maternal family had already left Ireland at that point, though, so they only ever knew the old version. 
> 
> OSDBB (the modern one) is one of my favorite Irish folk songs, and I wanted to use it because of reasons. Additionally, my first PenRen used the Queen Elizabeth and Grace O'Malley plot line I used here, so it all seemed to come together. 
> 
> "[Lochaber No More](http://www.contemplator.com/scotland/lochaber.html)" is also a little outside the bounds of the English Renaissance, but once again: no currrrr. (Considering the type of musical entertainment that usually occurs at RenFaires, I'm actually _way_ closer to establishing accuracy.) On that note, with a middle name like "[Buchanan](http://surnames.behindthename.com/name/buchanan)" Bucky _has_ to be at least part-Scottish. It's nowhere near a common enough name to be applied to a kid without consideration of their ethnic origin, particularly in the 1910s; I like to think of it as Winifred's maiden name.
> 
> [The Parting Glass](http://www.contemplator.com/ireland/pglass.html) is also a very popular Celtic song, and the tune definitely fits within the time period, though the lyrics may have come about later. 
> 
> As for Bucky's unspecified memory...Bucky saw some shit in Kreichsberg and that's all I'm gonna say about that for now.


	4. Open the Door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: discussed sexual assault; references to murder and the Troubles**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> So I unfortunately did not have enough time to finish _Where the Day Begins_ before New Year's, but that's okay! It's relying a lot more on _Sound and Color_ than I initially planned, so it might be better to either finish this one first, or continue to write them concurrently, at least.

“Steve? Everything all right in there?”

Even with the bathroom door shut between them, Peggy can tell that Steve’s first attempt to answer her is garbled, and he has to clear his throat before he calls out, “Yeah.”

“Can I come in, darling?”

“It’s not locked.”

Indeed it’s not, and Peggy almost tiptoes her way into the bathroom. 

“Thought you might have fallen in,” she attempts to joke, and she gets a cursory eyeroll in return. Indeed Steve is sitting on the toilet, but it’s closed underneath him. “I ordered dinner. It should be here in twenty minutes or so.”

Steve bobs his head vaguely. Peggy doesn’t have to wait long before, “He still asleep?”

“Mmhmm.” Bucky had been calm but obviously still on high alert as they left the Faire and especially in the cab, and they’d only convinced him to lay down and rest by promising—and showing—him that they would sweep the immediate area for any potential threats. It’s a testament to either his trust in them or how tired he is that he had not only stayed still, but closed his eyes while they did so; by the time Steve came back from scouring the grounds, he had effectively passed out.

“Good. Good. He needs the rest.”

“How about you, darling? Are you going to come out at some point? Lay down or just sit with us?”

“In a minute. You can, you can go back out; you should be with him.”

“And you shouldn’t?” she presses gently. 

He doesn’t look up from the floor. Peggy debates the merits of waiting him out sitting on the edge of the bathtub, and decides that it’d be far more comfortable to drift forward and slide into his lap. It doesn’t quite get him to look up himself, but he does let her take his face in her hands and tilt his head so he can look at her. 

“It’s all right, you know,” she says, attempting to convince herself as much as him. “It’s...it’s only been six months.”

“I knew something was wrong,” Steve says, after a moment. “When we went to get him. I could tell, the way he was holding onto me. I just thought...” No. “I was... _hoping_ that he was just getting, getting tired. Worn out.”

“Well, Steve, if it’s any consolation, I didn’t notice anything was wrong at all.” It’s not, for either of them. “It’s just...he’s very good at it. Hiding what’s wrong. Or...misdirecting us about it.”

“I’ve known him since we were eleven years old. I should be able to see through him by now.”

“But you’ve only known this...this _version_ of him,” the one who can’t withhold information when asked for it, and can’t lie to anyone’s face without the fear of getting slapped in his own, and so arranges it so no one wants, or even thinks, to question him, “for half a year. You’re going to... _we’re_ going to slip up.”

“Nn.”

“We just have to hope it won’t be...won’t ever be anything...catastrophic.”

“ _Catastrophic_. God.”

“And that he won’t hold anything against us,” she adds, with a bit of a laugh at how ridiculous the prospect is.

“No, he never would,” Steve agrees, but with none of the mirth, and it drops a brick into Peggy’s stomach.

“Steve.” He doesn’t respond, and she pulls his face back up again, to look into hers. “Steve, you _have got to stop_ thinking this way. It does you no good. It does _none of us_ any good.”

“I know,” he says, reaching up to grab her wrist, “I know, Peg, I’m trying, I just—”

“They _took him_ from us,” she says, with as much certainty and authority as she can muster. “This is _their_ fault.”

”I know.”

”And _you_ brought him back.”

“ _We_ did.”

“We all did. All three of us.” Steve somehow manages to nod. “And we’re...he’s getting better every day. You know what all his doctors say; he’s doing so well, _miraculously_ well, he shouldn’t even be...and it’s, it’s because of us, at least partly. Because he has us.”

“I know. I _know_ all of this, Peg; I’m not saying that we haven’t done him any good, or that he’d be better off without, without us,” the very words burn his mouth on their way out, “it’s just...”

_How hard is this going to get? What if one day it **is** catastrophic? How many more times am I going to let him down?_

“I’m just...frustrated.”

“I know,” Peggy says, thinly, hearing what he doesn’t say. “I am as well.”

He blinks, and sees her clearly for the first time since she came in; the red rim around her eyes, and the bright wet sheen over them. 

“Well I mean Steve, I didn’t even notice.”

She bites her lip, and blinks a little quickly, and Steve puts his arms around her, one anchoring her at the small of her back, the other sliding up to the back of her neck, arranging her so she can semi-comfortably bury her face into the crook of his shoulder. She’s almost hot to the touch, but her breath shudders a few times, so he clutches her close to him, pressing warmth into her with hands and lips and hoping that it gets inside and soothes them both, as much as it can.

They must drift off into some only-half-awake state, because it feels like a long time before the door creaks open, even though it can’t have been more than five minutes. 

“This a private party or can anyone join?” Bucky asks, his voice rusty from grogginess. 

“Can I see your ID?” Steve jokes, as Peggy looks up, discreetly wiping her eyes across Steve’s jaw as she does so. 

Bucky raises his left hand and pulls down his sleeve. “I don’t got a card, but I think this counts as an identifying feature.”

“Aren’t you tired, darling?” Peggy asks. Panic attacks will either keep him up for hours or knock him out cold, and when it's the latter he's usually out for eight or ten or twelve hours at a time.

“Yeah,” Bucky admits, as he pads toward them nevertheless. 

“Why don’t you go back to bed, then?”

“You guys’re in here,” he mumbles, as he nigh unto flops onto the floor, burying his aching face in Steve’s knee. 

“We don’t _have_ to stay in here,” Steve says, his one hand carefully dropping from Peggy’s back to the top of Bucky’s head. 

“I literally just sat down, Steve.”

“Well whose fault is that?” Peggy teases, and Bucky lifts his head so he can blow a raspberry at her. Steve’s hand falls downward as he does so, brushing and then cupping the side of Bucky’s face; his thumb strokes over the bone and hollow of Bucky’s cheek, and Bucky turns his face to touch his lips to the heel of Steve’s palm. 

He knows they get unnerved, in the aftermath; tentative and unsure as if they don’t know him like they do, and he has to get them back on track as soon as possi—

“What set you off, Buck?” Steve asks. “I know the, the cannons were a bit much,” he says, when both his partners look at him, “but you were kinda...I could tell something was off even before that.”

Of course Steve noticed. As aggravatingly up his own ass as he can be sometimes, he’s never been unobservant. 

“You don’t have to tell us,” Steve continues. “But...”

“But I should,” Bucky mumbles, because it’s important that he tells them what’s going on in his head, because candidness is apparently why he’s doing as well as he is. “I...” How to downplay this, how to keep from digging a hole any deeper than six feet. “I overheard some kids talking about...the pictures, the news, what’s been going on.”

Peggy nods slowly, and from the corner of their eyes both she and Bucky can see Steve physically restraining himself. He won’t repeat what they said about her.

“They weren’t being super polite about you,” is what he says instead, to her directly.

“People rarely are,” she says, with a shrug that’s practiced only because she’s had to use it in the field so much. “Was that all, darling? Was there anything else?” 

“There wasn’t anything _else_ , just...them, they just...” 

There are moments when parts of him, a shadow side, wishes that _dignity_ wasn’t something he got back.

“There was a...comment,” he says, after they listen to him struggle to find the right words for about half a minute, “about why you would step out on Steve for...for _me_. In particular.”

“Well have they _seen_ you?” Peggy asks.

“I mean, _I’d_ leave me for you,” Steve has just enough presence to joke.

It’s gratifying that Bucky doesn’t have to force a smile at that, but it falls away quickly. “It wasn’t about... _that_. It was about, it was because of...” The hole is about nine feet deep at this point, and he might as well jump in. “Why would you want— _want_ —Hydra’s...leftovers.”

A pin could drop onto the bathmat and have the volume of an atomic blast in the silence that follows. When Steve’s breathing goes from arrested to harsh and fast and getting faster, Bucky could swear hurricane winds were blowing through the room. 

“Astounding, isn’t it,” Peggy says, knife-sharp. “That people can not only think these, these vile things but say them, out loud, where other people can hear.”

“Not like they knew I was there listenin’ in on them,” Bucky murmurs. 

“No excuse,” somehow squeezes through Steve’s clenched jaw. “No excuse, Buck. They shouldn’t have said it at all. You are _not_ —”

“I know I’m not,” Bucky says quickly.

 _I don’t think you do,_ Steve swallows just in time for a loud, harsh buzzing noise fills up the entire hotel room, and Bucky flinches, whipping around to stare down the bathroom door. 

“That’s, that’s just the front desk, darling,” Peggy says, reaching for his shoulder but missing, and flapping her hand until she at least brushes his shoulder with her fingertips. “I ordered dinner. That’s...that’s probably what that’s about.”

“I’ll go get it,” Steve says, almost abruptly, but he’s careful to slide Peggy off his lap and into his spot as he vacates it. “So you two can stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Bucky leans over, touching Steve’s leg with the side of his head as he passes, and Steve passes his hand over the top of Bucky’s head, to make up for the loss of contact. Once Steve pushes the door to behind him Bucky turns again, scooting closer and resting his head on Peggy’s knee. 

“I hope you don’t mind I ordered _for_ you,” Peggy says carefully, carding her fingers through his hair with equal delicacy. “I just...didn't want to wake you."

"That’s okay,” Bucky mutters into Peggy’s kneecap. “Whadja order?"

"Thai."

"A _gain?_ " he teases, looking up, and Peggy mock-sneers at him. "You guys should just go sometime. We eat their food enough."

"Whenever you're ready," Peggy says, brushing a strand of hair out of his face.

"You could go without me, you know," Bucky says, after a moment of her absentminded ministrations and his staring into the middle distance. "I got...Tony and Pepper are at the Tower, and I'd have the cats to keep me company. You don't have to...you can go without me. It's okay. Don't let me hold you back, I mean."

"I rather think we've done enough without you, darling."

He doesn’t speak or move for a moment, save for his body tensing, and then he sits up on his knees somewhat abruptly. Peggy shifts back, holding his argumentative gaze with her unwavering one until he finally caves, dropping forward between her knees so his forehead falls clumsily onto her chest.

"Don't deserve you," he says, because a panic attack always leaves him feeling raw; through gritted teeth, because he guesses a protest is coming.

It does. Not with words, first; instead, her hand slides under his chin so she can tilt his face up so he looks at her again, and she lowers her head to lay a soft, lingering kiss on his mouth.

"Well, if you think that _I_ deserve to have only _one_ of the two kindest, most loyal men in the entire world, I suppose I can free you from my greedy clutches...?"

"Not fair," Bucky mumbles, his hands moving to wrap around her back, but settling for resting on either side of her waist.

“How is it not fair?” she asks, settling her hands on top of his.

"You fight dirty."

"It’s not dirty if it’s true,” she counters, dragging his hands, with the lightest and most insistent of pressure, up her sides, diagonally across her rib cage, between her breasts. His fingertips curl into his palms as they near her collar bones, but she doggedly pulls them up, testing the waters and, when she finds them receptive, unfurling his fingers with her own so they rest around her neck. 

He moves them up immediately, into her hair, pressed against the less delicate bones of her skull, and pulls her into another, longer, hungrier kiss.

That's fine. He closed the knife, but he still held it.

He follows her up as she stands; she hugs him once they’re steady on their feet, and he clings to her in turn. They shuffle back into the room proper leaning against each other, and climb into bed in time for Steve to come back, clutching two bags.

“I bet the delivery person loved that,” Bucky says, nodding at the V mask Steve had hastily pulled back over his face.

“They gave me a high-five, in fact,” Steve reports, setting the bags down on the bed. He glances quickly at their faces, trying to decide if they’re going to continue the conversation just now; the air around them settles on the negative, and Steve opens one of the bags. “All right, let’s see what our esteemed ladyfriend chose for us...”

Peggy arranges herself on her knees to better facilitate digging through the two bags, handing each item to either man as she unearths them. “These are the spring rolls...this is...” she squints at the blurred marker on the side of the container, “the sate’ tofu, the som tum...I’m never going to pronounce this correctly, the pad-se-eeuw...”

"Really, Peg, I don't know why you have trouble with it," Steve murmurs.

"Ah...the Penang curry, that's probably the cucumber salad...yes, that's the cucumbers, and last but not least, the cashew stir-fry."

"How did we _ever_ survive on rations?" Bucky asks, looking at the varied repast spread before him bemusedly.

"Miserably. Oh, and." Peggy pulls out one last plastic bag. "Fried bananas, for dessert."

"Aw, yay,” Bucky smiles, and Steve backs off the side of the bed. "Where you goin'?"

"Drinks." Steve points towards the mini-fridge across the room, and walks towards it as well, crouching once he arrives. "Let's see here. We have...wine, wine, and...more wine,” he reports, holding up one of the mini-bottles of Riesling for their observation.

"Fancy."

"Oh well if we're drinking wine, we ought to put on some music," Peggy muses as she pulls the lid off a plastic container.

"I just bought that CD; we can pop it in the DVD player, see if that works," Bucky suggests.

"Oh, that sounds nice. I vote Steve handles it."

"What? Why me?"

"You're already up and about. It just makes sense."

"Oh, I see how it is. Make me do all the work while you two laze about in bed."

“That’s the idea.”

"Cinderelly, Cinderelly..." Bucky sings under his breath, that having been one of the movies he's watched since coming back.

Steve makes a few more grumbly noises as he wanders about the room, depositing the wine on the bed so it gets arranged with the food and then fwumping on the other mattress a few feet away, playing home to the stuff they had bought from the Faire. Peggy helpfully digs the remote out of the nightstand and has the TV and DVD player running by the time Steve has the CD in hand. After a few less than hopeful noises, the player decides that it _will_ in fact play the CD, and Steve goes back to the second bed, digging through one of the bags again.

"Whatcha looking for?" Bucky asks, as drums and a tambourine softly fill up the room.

Steve finds, and holds aloft, the two bronze, scented roses he had acquired at the Faire. "Figured we should go all out."

"[We be three poor mariners...](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gEkL0N-OgIE)" the CD sings, as Steve, in lieu of putting the flowers in a vase, sets them on the center nightstand, propped up against the lamp. "Newly come from the seas..."

"Oh I know this one!" Peggy says excitedly, her face lighting up. "We spend our lives in jeopardy / While others live at ease," she joins in. "Shall we~ go dance the round, the round, the round?" she bobs her head side to side to the beat, grinning at the attention her men are paying her, "And shall we go dance the round, the round, the rou~nd? / And he that is a bully boy / Come pledge me on the ground, the ground, the ground..."

"Peg, how did you get to be so cute?" Bucky asks, as Steve slides back into an empty space on the bed.

"Well, I'm English," Peggy says. “And my Granny Maggie was actually a little bunny, and thus..."

Steve elbows her, and kisses her shoulder, and takes a spring roll out of the bag to put in Bucky's hand.

They were hungrier than they realized, even Bucky, and the first couple minutes of dinner pass in a companionable quiet that's augmented more than broken by the music, and checkered by requests to pass this or that container. It doesn't quite matter what was ordered with who in mind, as they end up grazing from every dish, nestling those containers not currently in use precariously in the folds of the comforter beneath them. The bottles of Riesling are opened one at a time, one shared between the three of them before the next is opened; Bucky ends up finishing the second one all by himself when _I’ll Tell Me Ma_ comes on and Steve and Peggy start quibbling over whether “[she](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27ll_Tell_Me_Ma)” should be the belle of _London_ or _Belfast_ City.

“You’re just upset you lot lost the human chess match,” Peggy mocks, and then squeals loudly when Steve reaches around to pinch her butt, bouncing on her hips, and then... “Oh _Steve_ , look what you made me do.”

There is now a tiny stain on the white part of her dress, and an even tinier pout on her face. 

“Tragedy,” Bucky deadpans over the lip of the bottle, earning himself a raspberry. 

“Sorry, Peg,” Steve says, and the gesture is turned on him. 

“I have to go wash this out before it sets,” Peggy grumbles. “Hold this.” She sets what she had been holding in Steve’s arms—he scrambles to balance it with his own food without spilling anything further—and slides off the bed. To their surprise she goes to the other bed, rather than to the dresser where Tony, helpfully, had some hapless employee drive up and deposit a change of clothes for them all, picking up a bag that both men realize they don’t recognize.

“Whatcha got there, Pegs?” Bucky asks. 

“You’ll see,” she says without looking at them as she disappears into the bathroom. 

Steve and Bucky glance at each other, before Steve whispers, “It’s still supposed to be Belfast.”

“I heard that!” Peggy yells, and Bucky sticks the last spring roll in Steve’s mouth before he can resume the argument.

Steve has munched the roll down to almost nothing, and Bucky’s stabbing together a forkful of cucumber salad, when Peggy comes back out. Bucky’s about to ask what took her so long, but instead his jaw drops, and Steve nearly chokes on his last mouthful. 

“I take it you approve?” Peggy giggle-purrs, pleased that her gamble appears to have paid off. 

“When did you get—” a bright but rich red shirt that’s more of a bra decorated with gold-colored discs arranged in rows across the chest and dipping down into a v towards her stomach, and a matching triangular scarf tied around her hips, over her panties and otherwise bare legs, “ _that?_ ”

“When you two were in the men’s room,” Peggy says, walking forward nonchalantly like her get-up _isn’t_ jingling with every step, and climbing back into the bed. Steve catches her eye as she does so, and she dips her head just enough to tell him that Bucky will be fine with this.

“And you yelled at us for wanting you to get something like that,” Steve says; the string tying the top around her neck dangles over her tattoo, and he bats at it like a kitten at play.

“It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind,” Peggy says nonchalantly, working open the third mini-bottle of wine. “And this looked infinitely more comfortable than a corset.” The cork comes off with a loud _pop_ , and she takes an elegant but extravagant sip. “Easier to remove, as well.”

She props the bottle up in between the pillows and stretches, conspicuously, showing off the shape of her upper body, before turning and flopping down, so she can prop herself up against the pillows and stretch her legs across Steve’s lap.

“Feed me,” she commands, parting her lips accordingly.

“Oh?” Steve asks, lifting up one of her feet, dropping a kiss on her ankle. “Feed you? Are you a baby bird now?”

“Cheep-cheep-cheep...”

Bucky laughs, and the forkful of cucumbers he had been gathering for himself ends up hovering over her mouth. She makes sure to wrap her lips around the food, and drag it off the fork, slowly, only breaking eye contact with Bucky to give it to Steve, and then to let her eyes flutter closed as she swallows with a pleased-sounding little noise, snuggling her shoulders deeper into the pillows.

Steve folds over, pushing the v of her top out of the way so he can blow a loud raspberry on her stomach. Peggy _shrieks_ , and flails, and Bucky only just rescues the bottle of wine from getting knocked over and pouring out all over the mattress (though he’s wheezing so hard that he almost ends up spilling it, himself).

After getting somewhat kicked in retaliation, Steve shows his contrition by digging out the bag of fried bananas and, as cleanly as he can, breaking them into pieces, “In lieu of peeling your Highness some grapes,” he grumbles good-naturedly at Peggy. The peace offering proves to have been accepted when he feeds her a chunk, and she gently captures his thumb with her lips before he can take it away, and lets it go with a kiss.

Bucky shifts, turning himself around and pushing back, so he can slot himself into Steve’s side. Peggy draws her legs back, so she can knead his thigh with her toes, and he bends over to kiss her knee. They catch gazes as he does so, and if Steve briefly wonders what the obvious mischief passing between them means, he doesn’t have to wait long for an answer.

“Cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep...”

“Oh come _on_ ,” Steve whines, throwing his head back dramatically.

“My hands are busy,” Bucky protests; his left hand is, indeed, still holding the bottle of wine, and his right quickly occupies itself by wrapping around Steve’s waist and squeezing it, carefully.

He’s a little less wary of his right hand. It’s never snapped a spine, and though it _could_ crush a person’s windpipe, why would it, when the metal hand could have done the same trick so much quicker? 

“Oh yeah, so busy,” Steve grumble-teases as Peggy giggles, and Bucky’s got enough leverage over himself to blank his mind before it gets lost again (his left hand is new and it is _his_ ; he’s the only one who’s ever chosen what he’s done with it). He tries not to make it obvious that he’s deepened his breathing, and he makes himself meet Steve’s eyes when the other man, with obviously faux begrudging, offers up a piece of fried banana. He even has enough presence, after he accepts it, to hold the bottle of wine out in return.

Steve side-eyes him; Bucky bats his eyelashes innocently, and Steve, after a moment of deliberation, decides he can still tell when Bucky’s guilelessness is genuine, and opts to trust.

It’s a true assessment, except Bucky gets distracted by the bob of Steve’s throat as he swallows—by Peggy’s contented, costumes silhouette peeking into the corner of his vision too—so he accidentally ends up flooding Steve’s mouth with wine, anyway.

“You...jerk,” Steve coughs, after he has to let a little of it spill out the side of his mouth before he can gulp down the rest of it; Peggy snickers loudly, and he thwaps her knee.

“That wasn’t on purpose, honest,” Bucky says, quickly setting the bottle, now almost empty, on the floor.

“Mmhmm. Yeah. I believe that _completely_.”

“It _wasn’t_ ,” Bucky insists, though his laugh isn’t helping his cause. Leaning up to run his tongue over the tract of wine left on Steve’s chin also doesn’t help, but it does distract, and also preempts any retaliatory gestures. 

“So innocent, he’s destroying evidence,” Peggy teases, and then jerks her legs back, covering her stomach with her thighs to protect it from attack.

The track changes just as Bucky decides that getting kicked isn’t worth the effort of teasing her, to the song Steve had sorta-recognized earlier, and as a goodwill gesture Bucky puts his knees underneath him and leans over, breaching the small gap between the beds to reach the CD case. Steve grabs his robe at the small of his back, to help him keep his balance, and Peggy lays a hand on his right arm to help anchor it, so he maybe stays stretched out like this for a moment longer than he needs to.

“I wanna see if there’s a translation,” he says, brandishing the case at them once he’s safely seated once more. “Maybe you know the English version or something,” he addresses Steve, who shrugs the possibility. 

He knew Irish Gaelic once, Bucky remembers suddenly as he flips through the small insert booklet. Well, he knew enough—had been programmed with enough—to liaise with the IRA, in any case. That memory is hazy, like all new recollections are at first, and he tries to relegate it to the Resignation box in his brain, before it can put itself in the Distressing one. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t want to be there. He wouldn’t have done it if he’d been able to choose.

It’s a terrible thing to try to accept, that a body can be a person and a weapon at the same time.

“Um...lyrics by Padraig Pearce, 1914; tune traditional,” he reads, next to the title. “Guess that explains it,” he directs at Steve. 

“What’s it mean?” Peggy asks, sitting up on her elbows. “What’s it translate to, I mean.”

“Uh...okay, they’ve got a translation. Well, chorus first. _Hooray, welcome home / Hooray, welcome home / Hooray, welcome home / Now that summer’s coming_. And the first verse...”

“Mm?” Peggy prompts, when Bucky’s lips thin and press together for a moment. 

“ _Hail, oh woman, who was so afflicted / It was our ruin that you were in chains / Our fine land in the possession of thieves / While you were sold to the foreigners_.”

He doesn’t look up for a moment, and he doesn’t need to; their quiet is as thick and heavy and sharp as cracked porcelain resting around his shoulders. 

“Well that killed the mood, didn’t it.” Peggy forces a deliberately weak laugh; Steve remains conspicuously silent. “Um...the other two verses are...the second one is about how Grace O’Malley is coming back with Gaels—it’s very important that they’re Gaels in particular—and the third one asks God that we live just long enough to see them kicking the foreigners’ collective ass.” He flips the booklet closed again, flapping it a few times against his metal palm. “It’s a...it’s an upbeat song, at least? I mean, whoever that person was who got abducted...they got to come home.”

There’s a beat, as the chorus echoes, and then he leans forward again, tossing the booklet, and then the case, gently back onto the other bed. Peggy sits up fully as he fits himself back into Steve’s side, snuggling into Steve on the opposite side and reaching over for his left hand.

Christ, he doesn’t want to think about Hydra right now. He wants to think about _them_ , the three of them; about the fun day they’d managed to eke out of this whole mess, their first real date as a trio. About this morning, the teasing as they got dressed; at the Faire, holding Steve’s hand and dancing with Peggy; tonight, the costume and the wine and...

He lets Peggy’s hand his brush his for a few seconds before he grabs it, rough with clumsiness, and pulls her forward. His face disappears against Steve’s neck, burrowing first before he tilts his face up to kiss; his left hand lets go of Peggy’s so it can grab onto her thigh. 

“Buck,” Steve croaks, his throat suddenly dry, as Peggy makes a high noise at the metal fingers pressing into her leg. 

“I came home, didn’t I?” Bucky mumbles wetly into the crook of Steve’s shoulder. “I’m...this isn’t a dream, it’s real. I came home. I’m with you.”

“God,” Peggy chokes, grabbing his wrist. 

“Fuck, yes, oh my God, Bucky. This is real.” Steve grabs his face; turns it up so they lock eyes. “You’re not...you’re here, you’re with us.”

“And I’m yours.” Bucky snakes his hands around the back of Steve’s head, pulls him into a graceless hard kiss; keeps his right hand there as he fits his left into the curve of Peggy’s waist and leans his body across Steve, to kiss her like he did before, in the bathroom. “Not theirs, anymore. Yours. _Ours_...”

“Mmhmm,” Peggy hum-squeaks, her eyes squeezing shut as either arm goes around either man. “Mmhmm.”

Bucky’s face is sandwiched blindly against and between their shoulders, and he could tell just by feel and taste which one he’s kissing if he cared to, but he doesn’t; they’re a blur of _SteveandPeggy_ now, warm and real and here and _his_ after decades of not even being allowed his own name, and every fiber of his being wants to melt into them. 

“Can we...?” Bucky asks, hardly able to speak between the kisses he plants on their faces. “Can we? Please, I want, _God_ , I want to...” 

Peggy slides her hand into his hair, her thumb and pointer finger gently pinching and massaging his ear. 

“Buck, are you sure?” Steve asks, almost small. 

“Yeah,” comes out as a breath. It’s not so far-fetched; they've been working up to this ever since he remembered _them_ , ever since he first overheard the other two acting on their passion for each other and knew that this was something he had to get back. They kiss, they flirt, they sleep together and change in front of each other and...

“Absolutely sure?” Steve presses, and Bucky’s heart drops into his stomach. 

“Do you not...want to...?”

“No, darling, of course we do,” Peggy cuts in hurriedly. “Of _course_ we do,” she repeats, this time with a laugh, glancing down at her outfit. She’d wanted the evening to go somewhere in this direction, but... “We just...it’s...it’s just been rather up-and-down today, hasn’t it, right up until this very moment, in fact, and...” she flicks her gaze over at Steve, “we...don’t want you to feel...that this is the right time, if it isn’t. We don’t want you to push yourself if you, if you really oughtn’t.”

It doesn’t surprise him, just...pauses him, for a moment, enough for him to slump back, just slightly. Because of course. They know everything, just like the rest of the world; they know that there wasn’t a thing that could be shared between lovers that Hydra hadn’t twisted around to hurt him, or misdirect him, or control him.

But they did it before, after Kreischberg. He did it with full memory of everything that had happened in that camp. He can do it again, especially now that they know; now that there isn’t a single secret left to keep from them for their protection, or his.

“So let me just...let me just...” He used to have a way with words; he used to have so many things. They were so happy, and they could be again. “If I could...”

“...set the pace?” Peggy offers gently, after a moment of his floundering. 

He nods, grateful. “Let me just...go with what I think to do. If you’re, if you two are okay with it. We’ll...we’ll decide together. All three of us. We all have to agree. I’ll start, and...you can stop me, if...” if they, if he... “if need be.”

He looks up at them without lifting his head, flicking his gaze back and forth between their faces. He’s not used to being the one doing the reassuring, and it occurs to him that he might want to look more confident; he straightens up, makes himself more aware of eye contact. His hands have dropped away from Steve’s head and Peggy’s leg, and he moves them now to take theirs, to awkwardly stroke his thumbs over the back of their hands. 

“Buck, you gotta _promise_ ,” stumbles out of Steve’s throat; because Bucky has to know that he’s not what those kids said about him; because Bucky has to be trusted, including by himself; because Steve wants this as badly as Bucky does, but at the same time... “you gotta promise that you’ll...you’ll tap out, if you need to. Don’t...don’t pretend to be okay if you’re not again. Please.”

“I’ve the same request,” Peggy murmurs, and all the same thoughts, as well. 

Bucky almost smiles at that. That’ll be a lot easier when he’s not in the midst of an active panic attack. The errant thought that he could possibly slip into one again gets dropped before it can take root. 

“I won’t. I promise that I won’t, I mean, and...” He almost doesn’t say it, but now they’re looking at him, and if it means they feel better, more secure... “‘f’you think I am, then...you can put a stop to it. _Tell_ me if you think I am, at least. And I’ll, I’ll set the record straight.”

He _does_ smile at that this time, weakly, and he gets two mirror images in return, and then Steve leans forward, to put his lips on Bucky’s temple, and Peggy pulls his hand up, to kiss his knuckles. From the corner of his eye he watches Steve wrap his right hand around Peggy’s back and clutch at her waist. 

“Sound good?”

Peggy inhales, parted lips revealing the shudder in her breath; she squeezes his fingers, kisses them again, and when she draws them away her smile is watery but real. 

“All right.”

She leans into the grip Steve has on her waist, and Bucky into his kiss. Steve breathes, heavy and shallow, a few times, before he pulls his lips away, replacing them with his forehead.

“I can’t have this be another traumatic thing for you, Buck,” he says, quiet, steady, aching. “I can’t.”

“Won’t let it be,” Bucky says, the same. “None of us will.”

“Never,” Peggy says, determined. 

Steve bobs his head; runs his tongue over his bone-dry lips; breathes in. Remembers the hospital; remembers the first time all three of them were reunited; remembers being thankful to be this lucky.

_Beauty and love’s the reward of the brave._

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't figure out if "[And he that is a bully boy / Come pledge me on the ground](http://www.contemplator.com/sea/mariners.html)" meant "If you're fun then join the dance" or "If you're an asshole then fight me" but I figured either would be apt for this bunch.
> 
> Disclaimer that Peggy’s outfit should not be considered an actual belly dancing outfit :D (I forgot to mention this last time, and the Algerian part of me scolds)
> 
> And yeah, I know in Civil War Bucky strangled Maria Stark with his flesh hand, but consider this: _fuck_ Civil War. 
> 
> The sex _was_ supposed to happen this chapter, but knowing how wordy I am and how, yes, shy I can be about writing love scenes, it's getting it's own chapter before this one can a) take another five years to finish, and b) become a novel in itself.


	5. Untie Your Lace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: allusions to rape; negative body image; allusions to dysphoria; mild self-harm**
> 
>  
> 
> Getting tired of having to write an explanation of Steve and Peggy's bodies every time it becomes relevant, so if this is your first rodeo or you need a refresher then [here you go](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12381114/chapters/30506844)!
> 
> Also, since someone might comment on the lack of condoms here, they’re all STD-free. Bucky...*sigh* "lucked out" of catching anything at Kreischberg, and post-fall Hydra didn’t want their guinea pig/assassin dying of...anything, but least of all a sex disease, so they ensured that Bucky remained healthy in this regard, through both magical and conventional means >.>
> 
> “Nymphae” is an old-fashioned term for the inner labia, btw. I use it to distinguish it from the outer ones. Also bc it’s pretty-sounding. 
> 
> And on that note, I’ve been told my porn is bad, so. Brace yourselves, I guess.

“So.” 

Bucky nearly laughs to be asking this, for all the confidence he’s been trying to project, but maybe it’s best if they weigh in from the start. It’s definitely best to have a plan, at the very least. 

“How did we...before?”

The laugh he gets in return isn’t hysterical, but it’s along the same vein.

“Very quickly,” Peggy says. “It was almost always just two of us at a time, we couldn’t often...all three disappear at once.”

“But we did...?”

“A few times, yes, yes, we got to.”

“How? I mean,” he face seems to be warming, “how’d we...arrange ourselves.”

“I had to be in the middle,” Steve says. “‘Cause Peggy...”

“You didn’t want to hurt me,” Peggy says. 

Bucky nods, but his brow creases. “Was I...” he hopes the sudden crawling sensation in his skin doesn’t show on his hand or neck or face, “...that, that...rough, with you?”

“Oh no, darling, not at all,” Peggy rushes to reassure, squeezing his hand. “I’m just...we had to be quick, whatever we did, and...well, it’s my _physical condition_. I’m not...deep enough for you.”

Oh. Bucky flushes quite visibly this time, relief mixing with embarrassment that he’d forgotten something that’s been told him post-Hydra. 

“Yeah, Peggy’s not that deep,” Steve teases, and then winces mightily as Peggy slaps the back of his head. 

“We _could_ , now,” Peggy says. “It’s not like...no one else is here, we don’t have to, to rush. If you were _very_ careful—”

“I don’t wanna hurt you,” Bucky says, barely above a whisper. 

“...All right.”

Steve runs his free hand over Bucky’s hair, his gut squeezing. “We don’t have anything for...to make you-and-me work, either, Buck. I mean, I could check the bathroom, but I doubt there’s gonna be anything, y’know, _good_. Anything that we _should_ use, I mean. It’s not that kind of hotel.”

“...Oh, okay,” Bucky returns dumbly, not sure if this is a disappointment or a relief. “So...” 

“So how do we want to...set ourselves up, do you think?” Peggy asks. 

Bucky looks at her, glancing her up and down, and breathes deeply before looking back at Steve. 

“I could, um...I could...get you ready, for each other.” The flush this brings to both of their faces is both nerve-wracking and immensely gratifying. “If you want.”

“...Well I’m, I’m, I’m not gonna stop you,” Steve says; it’s a weak attempt at dirty talk that trips out of a dry throat, but it gets a small, bitten smile out of Bucky anyway. 

“Sounds good, then.” He’s loathe to let them go, and he doesn’t for a moment, but once he leans into squeezing their hands he’s got enough momentum to do so, and to stand. 

Bucky had initially lain down without getting changed, and getting out of the long wizard’s robe is a challenge on every front, not least of all a logistical one; it’s got very little give, and he’s got weak-feeling fingers. The breathy little giggles he gets when he’s pulled it up enough to have his face covered are a genuine joy, though. 

“Would you like some help?” Peggy asks. 

“Well I’m not gonna stop you.”

He hears Steve snort, and Peggy laugh, and the bed creak as they stand up. They put their hands on him carefully, Steve holding him in place at the hips, Peggy helping him drag the robe over his head and tossing it onto the spare bed behind him. 

It’s much easier to get out of the civilian clothes he’d kept on underneath it for warmth, but he lets them help with that, too. His and Peggy’s hands fumble together getting his shirt off, but they let Steve reach around from behind to unbuckle Bucky’s belt, push the button to his jeans out of its hole, and pull down the zipper by himself.

Bucky leans back against him while he does so, and Steve buries his face in the crook of Bucky’s shoulder, breath hot between the delicate and desperate kisses he presses there. As softly as he can he drags Bucky’s hair out of the way with his left hand, moving his kisses in a curved line across the back of his neck; and a heady feeling takes Bucky’s vision away for a moment. When it comes back he sees the top of Peggy’s head, haloed by the lamplight, as she tucks her face into his chest to mirror Steve’s kisses and puts her arms around both men, and he instinctively buries his fingers in her gloriously soft brown curls. 

Steve reaches around with his right hand, settling it on the small of Peggy’s back, and they hold each other for a minute, steadying each other through the dense wave of _we’re really doing this_ crashing over them. Then Steve rests his chin on Bucky’s shoulder, and Peggy presses up against Bucky to kiss her husband, and Bucky carefully takes his hands out of Peggy’s hair so he can finish undressing. 

“Suppose I’ll clear off the bed,” Peggy says, her laugh and her footing both unsure as she takes a step back.

“Should probably get some towels,” Bucky mumbles, also stepping away. “Don’t wanna leave, uh, a mess.” Towels will be easier to wash out than sheets. Or the carpet.

“...And I’ll just wait here then, I guess,” Steve says, suddenly feeling a slight chill now that he’s been left alone. 

“You could help me put the food away,” Peggy teases, looking over her shoulder from where she’s half-kneeling on the bed. “Make yourself useful for once.”

Bucky hears the loud thwap Steve lands on Peggy’s bottom and the giggle-squeak she gives in return, and the smile that tugs on the corner of his mouth brings to his attention the fact that his lips are trembling.

He makes sure the bathroom door doesn’t swing open all the way, so he has something to hide behind while he gathers himself. He catches a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror as he steps strategically behind the door, and it takes him off guard for a moment. 

He’s smaller than he was when they first brought him home. There’s still definition to his muscles, but his dimensions have shrunk down because of his shitty inconsistent eating habits and the fluctuating amount of exercise he can make himself do on any given day.

He’s so pale, too. Tony’s somehow designed their windows to actually let UVB through, and he sits in the sun long enough get adequate Vitamin D, but not long enough to fully escape looking pallid. And the mass of scars around his left shoulder aren’t fading for all the lack of sunlight they get, even with a much lighter arm that doesn’t tug so much on the skin.

He shoves a hand through his hair, watching his mirror self hold it back from his face. He likes his hair long, he knows he does, but he also knows Hydra made him grow it out because it was easier to grab, and because it makes his face look different than when it’s short. 

Fuck, he really _does_ look like something Hydra chewed up and spit out. 

He forces himself to look away from the mirror, training his eyes on the towel rack and focusing on his task. His mangled brain can think such things all it wants, but he can’t let it hinder him. Steve and Peggy have made it emphatically clear that they still find him attractive and beyond all else, he believes in them. He wants to show them how much. 

He takes his time, both to make sure he looks calm and put-together, and because, when he quietly steps into the doorway after washing his hands, he wants to watch them sitting on the edge of the bed together, holding each other, kissing, for as long as he can. 

Apparently he would have been jealous, at some point. Maybe seventy-two years ago the sight of Peggy’s hands holding Steve’s face, Steve’s holding her mid-back and shoulder blade, their slightly-parted lips pressed so tightly, moving so fiercely and smoothly, against each other that you could hardly see where one stopped and the other began, would have destroyed him. Now he has to lean against the doorpost for support, under the weight of how _grateful_ he is that they’ve had each other all this time. Had either of them woken up in the 21st century alone...Steve would’ve found a way to get himself killed, and Peggy would have discreetly worked herself to death, and if either had seen Project Insight, he would have left them on the shore of the Potomac, too scared to stay, and later, too ashamed to come back. 

They stop for breath, and rest their foreheads against each other’s, and Bucky holds his breath, cursing himself when the tile creaks under his feet. They’ve changed positions from earlier, Peggy closer to the foot of the bed, so Steve is the one facing the bathroom, and the noise catches his attention. He pulls his face away from Peggy, to offer Bucky a watery smile; Peggy turns, staying in the circle of Steve’s arms, and gives him the same.

“Moving on without me?” Bucky teases, stepping into the room and reaching for the DVD player, to turn off the music.

“Hey, _you’re_ supposed to be leading the way here,” Steve tosses back, landing on playful but with wobbly legs. “We were just killing time while we waited for you.”

“No respect for authority,” Bucky sighs, shaking his head. “Typical.” 

“Technically we both [outrank](https://www.google.com/amp/mxverik.tumblr.com/post/92491052240/does-anyone-know-peggy-carters-army-rank/amp) you, darling,” Peggy murmurs in one breath.

“Don’t I know it.” Bucky grumbles as he pads forward, letting the towels fall on the bed behind Peggy. 

“Well, if you want us to respect your authority, you might want to start giving orders,” Peggy goads, pressing her lips into a smirk. 

“All right then.” Bucky holds out his right hand, and once Peggy takes it he pulls her onto her feet and up against him. She giggles into the kiss first, before her laughter slows and evens out to a soft, pleased hum; her arms come up to drape loosely around his neck, her fingers to toy with his hair, as his hands squeeze the curve of her waistline. 

It takes a minute, because she’s halfway to melted into him, for Peggy to realize that aside from the both of them rocking on their feet, Bucky hasn’t moved since. 

His brain shorts out at the worst possible times, leaving ideas and images floating around without one moving itself into position to be acted upon. He hasn’t “led the way” since February of ‘45, maybe even before that; he doesn’t remember. He hasn’t led _anything_ in decades; he...maybe he doesn’t know how to anymore, maybe this was a stupid idea, maybe he _will_ end up hurting her—

Peggy nearly winces at the grip he doesn’t realize he has her in. She tucks her face into the hinge of his jaw, kissing just below his ear, and tilts her face up to whisper “What do you want to do now?”

Bucky lets the breath he’d been holding go. That’s good. That’s something to head towards. 

“Tell me,” Peggy presses, steeling herself for any reply; nosing and then, very carefully, so carefully, more lips than teeth, nipping at his earlobe. “Tell me what you want now, darling.”

The vice loosens, relaxing back into trembling fingers, and then drop a little lower, sliding up under the hip scarf to tug on her panties. That’s a good start.

Peggy nuzzles her face into his neck and shimmies her hips, making the tiny bells wrapped around them sing. That draws a huff of laughter out of Bucky, and his eyes open, making him aware that he had closed them in the first place. Steve is still seated but tensed to stand, watching them with the oddest mix of concern and lust on his face, and that almost makes Bucky laugh again. 

“Steve,” he says, and then clears his throat, “you wanna help?”

He has just enough gumption to reach around Peggy, pull the waistband of her underwear out with one finger, and let it snap back against her. Peggy makes a disgruntled noise and reaches down to retaliate with a (careful) slap to Bucky’s backside. 

“Oh well twist my arm, why dontcha,” Steve snickers, scooting across the bed so he’s closer, but not flush, to the edge. Peggy’s pouting face instantly melts into a very pleased one when Steve cups his hands around the back of her knees and then slides them up her thighs. He bunches the fabric, top to bottom, between his long fingers and pulls down; Bucky assists from the other side, and Peggy makes sure to press her hips against Bucky’s when her panties hit the floor around her feet and she steps out of them. 

Bucky only just barely notices Steve going for the knot holding Peggy’s hip scarf up, and he covers one of Steve’s hands with his own before he can undo it. He shakes his head quickly when Steve looks up at him, and flushes a little when Steve chuckles and traces his fingers down from Peggy’s hip all the way to her mid-thigh. Peggy shimmies again, and then bends her knees slowly, giving Steve enough time to flatten his palms out underneath her. 

“This is a very comfy chair,” Peggy informs Bucky, once she’s safely seated in Steve’s hands, and she squeaks happily when Steve squeezes her bottom. 

Bucky bends over, chasing after her kisses; he puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder to steady himself, and then turns his palm up so he can cup Steve’s jaw, pressing his thumb against Steve’s mouth. Steve lets it in instinctively, pushing the tip of his tongue against it before wrapping his lips around it and sucking gently.

Bucky’s next breath is sharp in the best way. 

This position is tenable for only so long, even with their enhanced bodies, even if they want to stay this way for hours, and after a minute or two Bucky starts to press down, pressuring Steve to lower his hands, and Peggy, to the bed. Bucky bends to follow her down, and leaves her with the hardest, longest kiss yet, brushing the tip of his nose across her face as he steps around the corner of the mattress, to stand in front of Steve.

He did this before, he thinks, when Steve takes the hands Bucky holds out for him, squeezes them, gently bumps the sides of them together a few times in the middle of the space between them, and Bucky tenses his muscles to pull Steve to his feet. Some other time—another first time—when Steve was trying just as hard to swallow his nerves, for an entirely different reason. His younger self had plenty of fearlessness for Steve to borrow; he dredges up whatever he can of that and pours it into his lips when they touch Steve’s; his hands when they touch his face, the back of his head, shoulders, hips; when they grab onto the hem of his shirt and make to pull it up. 

“Just her, huh?” Steve mumbles at the corner of Bucky’s mouth. 

“Your clothes don’t make noise,” Bucky parries, and Steve lifts his arms so Bucky can finish pulling the shirt off over his head. He tosses it behind him, onto the other bed, and his hands come back, to touch Steve’s chest; his fingertips barely brush him when a sharp, emphatic _don’t_ from somewhere in the 30s throws them hastily, clumsily behind Bucky’s back. 

“You don’t...I’m sorry.” Bucky bites his lip. “I forgot that, too.”

Steve hugs him then, immediate, fierce; his face is hot and damp where it’s buried in Bucky’s neck. _It’s fine; it’s been fine for awhile,_ he thinks, but he says “It’s fine now” instead, heart squeezing and soaring all at once. “It’s okay, Buck. It doesn’t bother me anymore.”

Peggy leans over, resting her head on Steve’s side, and reaches out to take Bucky’s hand. 

“Okay. You sure? Okay,” Bucky stammers, blinking, trying to reorient himself as Steve shifts back. “Okay.”

Peggy kisses Steve’s hip, and then Bucky’s knuckles, and she smiles up at the both of them as she lets Bucky’s hand go. Bucky traces a finger across her cheek and lip before bringing his hand up, to cup Steve’s jaw and gently tug his face forward into another kiss. It drifts down again slowly, ghosting over Steve’s neck and collar bones, towards but not quite at the center of his chest; it lingers there, curling into a loose fist as Bucky kisses Steve again, slower, and then it skims down his stomach, coming to meet his other hand at the waistband of Steve’s pants. 

“Surprised these didn’t burst apart at the seams today,” Bucky mumbles, at the intersection of flirting and stalling. 

“Well I always make a concerted effort to keep my clothes on in public,” Steve deadpans, from the opposite corner. 

“Classified,” Peggy says, pretending to stamp the same on Steve’s bottom. 

Steve and Bucky share twin laughs, and Peggy manages to pinch a bit of fabric between her fingers and tug insistently on it. Both men somehow manage to send her a grateful look in a sideways glance, and Bucky draws himself together enough to get to work peeling Steve’s pants off of him. 

It’s not an easy task precisely because of how tight they are, and there’s a lot of pulling and shifting weight and near-misses with overbalancing that are resolved when Peggy wraps her arms around Steve’s left leg like it’s a tree trunk, grounding him. The ridiculousness of the exercise bubbles over, and by the time Peggy has to let go so Steve can sit and drag the stubborn hems clinging to his ankles off, all three of them are laughing. Bucky seizes the mirth to bend over, planting his fingertips on Steve’s shoulders and pressuring him to lean back; once Steve is propped up on his hands Bucky crouches and inches his way closer to the mattress, pushing Steve’s knees apart from each other as he does so. 

Peggy grabs Steve's face, turns it towards her, and slips her tongue inside his mouth; it will make getting him to lift his hips up, so Bucky can pull his underwear off, much easier.

Bucky turns on the balls of his feet, tossing the last of Steve’s clothes atop the rest of the pile, and then turns almost all the way back before something inside him freezes up. He lifts his eyes immediately, forcibly imagining the sensation of something in his brain falling, draining...whatever this memory is, he doesn’t want it right now, it can stay wherever the hell it was. Peggy hasn’t relinquished Steve yet, giving Bucky the chance to fix his gaze on the lamp on the nightstand, distract himself further with self-induced eyestrain.

After he blinks it away and looks a little further down he’s able to see the bronze roses that Steve left standing up against the lamp, and the corner of his mouth tugs itself into a half-smile. That’s the thought; that’s the memory for him to take into this. Them, their day, their life together, and nothing else. 

He takes a breath that shudders on its way back out, and his voice cracks a little when he says “Peggy?” But he’s able to turn all the way back now, and he gets “Can you, um, hand me one of those, one of the towels?” out, which he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to do.

Steve and Peggy broke apart slowly at Bucky’s call of her name, both of them seeing the effort it took for him to face them and speak. Peggy has to discreetly fortify herself as she turns, picking up one of the towels and letting it unfold itself on its way to Bucky. 

“Buck, you know I can’t...?” Steve asks quietly. 

“It’s, it’s, it’s for me,” Bucky says, dropping the towel on the floor and bunching it so the carpet has more than one layer of protection. 

The rush of blood to Steve’s head nearly takes his next breath with it, giving him a split second of heady dizziness. 

“You think you’re gonna...?”

“I _could_ ,” Bucky says, aiming for nonchalant and managing to flick his gaze up, to meet Steve’s. “‘f’I do it, y’know, right.”

Steve flushes immediately, drawing in a consciously deep breath; Bucky bites back a tiny smirk and glances over at Peggy. 

“Um. You can uh...you should put the other one, you should sit on the other one.” 

Peggy makes a soft sound, her mouth a perfect _o_ and her eyes widening almost to match.

“'Cause what I figure,” Bucky continues, as Peggy stands just enough to move the towel underneath her and sits back down, “what I figure is that I can, uh, I can get you guys going and then...you two can...finish. Together. So uh, you’ll have to tell me if, if you’re gettin’ close. I’m not...might not be able to, you know, tell, since...” _it’s been so long._

He must look nervous, because Steve cups a hand over his cheek, fingertips pushing into his hair, and sweeps his thumb along Bucky’s cheekbone. 

“That’s what you wanna do?” Steve asks, carefully, as Peggy shifts on her hips so she leans closer to them. 

“...yeah, I...I think that’s a good plan for our...” He swallows; it only alleviates the dryness in his throat a little bit. “Our first time out.”

"And you wanna do it like...like this? Not on the bed?"

"It’ll be easier like this," Bucky says. "Is, is that okay?"

“That’s fine,” comes out of Steve’s mouth after only a second of faltering, the joint effort of the part of his brain that wants to give Bucky anything he asks for, and the part that's been dreaming for years about Bucky kneeling between his legs again.

“Great.” Bucky grins toothily up at him, and then tilts his head out of Steve’s hand, as he shifts his weight towards Peggy. “Pegs, could you uh...um, here. Kinda...angle yourself towards Steve a little, and um, plant your one foot on the bed. Your right one.”

Peggy does as directed, scooting closer to Steve though stopping a few inches short of pushing up flush against him, her upright knee pressing against his back, her left leg hanging loosely off the edge of the bed. Bucky slips his right hand underneath Steve’s leg, propping it up somewhat with his shoulder. 

“Well, um. Here we go, I guess.”

“You gues—” Peggy starts to tease, but it’s cut off by a sharp gasp when Bucky slides his hand forward and carefully strokes his thumb over her nymphae. He glances up from where his face is otherwise pressed into Steve’s thigh, watching her suck her lower lip into her mouth and drag it back out slowly between her teeth, when he does it again.

Steve feels Bucky smile into his leg, and that as much as Peggy’s soft noises sends his hand into Bucky’s hair. Bucky makes a noise then, too, a hard-to-place one; his metal hand comes up to grab Steve’s wrist and Steve freezes, inwardly cussing himself for moving too suddenly, without warning. Bucky looks— _is_ —so vulnerable like this, like a glass that’s already been cracked, and Steve’s some clumsy moron who needs every bit of mindfulness he can scrape together just to touch it, let alone handle it. The part of Steve’s brain that lives to slip a nightmare into a fantasy is also pawing very frantically at the door, reminding him about all those reports, all those photos of Bucky forced into the same position—

Bucky takes two breaths, one shallow, the second deeper, and burrows his face into Steve’s thigh, opening his mouth to lick a small stripe that he tops with a kiss. He loosens his hold on Steve’s wrist, dragging both their hands down the back of his head towards his neck, and then guides them back up, to the crown of his head, to repeat the gesture. He curls his fingers around Steve’s as he does so, pushing them so they slide into his hair and trail across his scalp. 

“Just, just don’t _yank_ ,” Bucky mumbles. “Don’t yank it and I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Steve says, a clipped breath, and Bucky looks up to flash a quick grin at him and squeeze his hand. Peggy’s been half-drawn out of her reverie, looking equal parts wanting to go back in, and to stand guard outside.

“I’m good right now, promise,” Bucky says, releasing Steve’s hand and putting his face back where it was. After a beat his gaze peeks over Steve’s leg, to flick between theirs. “Love you both.”

“Love you, too,” echoes back to him.

“I know.”

He stills for a handful of seconds, trying to give them the thought that he’ll be good God _damned_ if Hydra finds a way to control tonight, to make him forget that truth ever again. Then he drops his gaze, pressing his face and fingers into his beloveds like he wishes he could melt into them, and hopes.

After a moment, Steve’s hand slides down and fits around the back of Bucky’s head where it curves into his neck, and Peggy releases a sigh that’s as shuddery as it is soft, and Bucky would cry if he didn’t think it’d undo everything in an instant.

Peggy leans forward, dropping her forehead against Steve’s shoulder; he feels her sigh ghost over his skin before she tilts her head back to suck a line of kisses up his arm. He turns his face, kissing her forehead, and her mouth when she angles it up enough to allow it; catches the short, soft groan she releases when Bucky strokes her again. 

Bucky lets himself smile pleasedly at the sound. From what he can gather from his patchy sense memories and eavesdropping, Peggy can be—has to be, in fact—hooked from the start, but Steve needs more time to get warmed up. That’s fine. He’ll be slow with her, give himself and Steve time to—

Peggy’s hand drops down, snaking around his wrist; she presses her fingers around and against his, angling them how she wants and moving them the same. He can’t hide the shiver that runs through him as she draws in a high breath and sighs out “God, I missed you” with utter unthinking sincerity; can’t stop himself from peppering his own joyful line of kisses from Steve’s knee all the way down to his mid-thigh. She’s got a hard grip on his hand, and pushes her hips forward and back so his fingers press against every spot that makes her whine for more; her other hand snakes around the back of Steve’s head and pulls it towards her, drawing his face to her throat and demanding its attention.

She gets it, his mouth worrying that particular spot on her neck until her eyes flutter and she slides her knees underneath her, to rise up and then bear down on Bucky’s hand, to capture Steve’s ear and gently tug on it with her teeth. Bucky hears the soft ringing of the bells around her hips as she moves; can tell by the jerking of her hips when her knees go momentarily weak. She throws her arms around Steve’s neck for support and moans into his ear and _wow_ , all right, Bucky severely overestimated how much time Steve would need. Maybe because he’s there now, as well as Peggy. 

And now he’s the one to have pause, an instantaneous animal fear that seizes his guts. He swallows, keeping it down before it can travel to his brains and take over for logic. _It’d be really hard to choke on him, Barnes. ‘Specially if he’s not trying to make you._

He leans forward on his knees, lips parting, breath hitching despite his best efforts. Steve’s fingers are twitching at the nape of his neck, pressing into his skin and hair one or two at a time, and unconsciously Bucky lifts his metal hand to them; whether to pull them away or hold them he doesn’t know, though it ends up being the latter. He exhales, shallower and more ragged than he wants, and he makes the snap decision to take just a little more time to psych himself up, fitting his mouth at the juncture of Steve’s hip and thigh and feathering it with the tip of his tongue.

Steve’s thumb runs up and down and in circles around the back of Bucky’s neck, careful but obviously wanting, _badly_ ; Bucky noses at the spot he’s been licking, and Steve feels both the fortifying breath Bucky takes, and the small smile that stretches across Bucky’s face as it brushes over his skin. 

They’ve been running on nothing but courage and devotion all these years. There’s no reason to think that combination won’t pull them through now. 

_“God—!”_

Steve almost doubles over when Bucky turns his head, his lips sliding around Steve’s shaft from the side first; he drops forward enough for Peggy to throw herself half-on top of him, holding him around the shoulders and littering kisses across his shoulder blades and the back of his neck. Bucky draws away for a moment, nearly unnerved by his own initiative; Steve’s hand tenses around the back of his neck, almost tugging Bucky back, but he stops himself, and Bucky glances up at him, hovering only half an inch above target. 

“You missed me too, Steve?” he asks, trying to tease. 

“You got no idea,” Steve says, as guilessly automatic as Peggy’s confession had been, and Bucky ducks his head, to hide the dark flush that springs into existence on his face. 

“Let’s, um. Should get ourselves reacquainted, then.”

Steve doesn’t so much force Bucky’s return as egg it on as it happens, and Bucky’s metal hand flounders for a moment before it lands on Steve’s leg, to brace himself. Above him Bucky can hear Steve starting to pant, and Peggy purring so delightedly that she’s almost laughing; infectious sounds that flood his mind and reorient his nerves to something giddy. He pulls back again, just an inch or so, and glances up at Steve, and Peggy who’s turned her head enough to catch his eye, and they see him grin up at them with a hint of his old mischief. It distracts them from Bucky’s thumb seeking out and pressing against Peggy’s clitoris, drawing a shocked, happy yelp out of her that she immediately buries in the crook of Steve’s neck and transforms into hungry kisses. Steve’s eyes roll up for a moment before they straighten themselves out enough to stare down at Bucky, looking something like wonderstruck. Bucky meets the gaze and keeps it as he puts his mouth back where it was. 

Steve’s hand jerks up and fists in Bucky’s hair, and part of Bucky tells him that he has to snap-decide if he should wince or refrain from wincing. Another part of him, half a second later, remembers exactly where he is and who’s hanging onto him, and instead has him tuck his head in, to nuzzle into the hold, and then pull away only the most infinitesimal amount, avoiding pain, resisting just enough to feel the grip and play-challenge it.

Steve's hand relaxes, and his fingers stretch out. When they curl again it’s with far more strands captured tightly between them.

It’s a gamble, and the soft noise that vibrates out from Bucky’s throat to all of Steve’s body is the sweetest payout. Peggy must feel it too, because she goes for every spot on Steve’s neck that she knows makes his blood sing, dragging her fingers and mouth across them as she rocks on her knees. Steve snakes his free hand all the way around her back, sliding it under her top; his thumb runs around and over her nipple and she thanks him with another pawing grab at his face and another crushing, open-mouthed kiss. The counterpoint is the soft attention of Bucky’s tongue and lips around Steve’s tip and for a few seconds Steve’s mind is empty of everything but _want_ ; he presses back against Peggy’s mouth at the same time he pulls Bucky forward. 

The heady bliss lasts for a full second and a half before a cold stab of fear splits it in half; he breaks the kiss abruptly, and Peggy follows his stricken gaze down to Bucky. Relief floods him when he sees Bucky not only not too far moved—he hadn’t been anywhere near as forceful as his fear had accused him of being—but breathing calmly, if deliberately deeply. It takes a truncated moment for Bucky to slide off, and just another second for them to see his eyes are somehow both dark and glowing between the eyelashes he peeks up at them through.

“Put me where you want me, Steve,” comes out of Bucky’s mouth in a hushed, almost hoarse breath, and somehow, between them, Peggy and Steve manage to avoid sliding off the bed.

Steve does as bade, never yanking, somehow not really pulling either; just guiding Bucky’s mouth so it wraps around his cock, slides forward and back in a steady, relentlessly calm pace. After a moment of vigilance alongside her husband Peggy tightens her right arm around Steve’s neck, so she can reach down with her left and take hold of Bucky’s wrist again; his fingers are trembling slightly but they move of their own accord, stroking her without a trace of broken focus or true fear. She lets him go for a moment, audibly kissing her fingertips and then pressing them to the back of his hand, and he flips his hand over so he can squeeze hers. 

“There we are,” Peggy whispers; Steve rests his cheek against her collarbone and gently scritches the top of Bucky’s head with his thumb, and Bucky lets out a muffled, shivering moan that blinds Steve for a moment. Bucky shifts his weight on his knees and grips Steve’s leg a little tighter with his metal hand, catching and drawing Steve’s returning gaze, and a self-reproachful thought strikes the other man. 

“Can’t help thinkin’...can’t help but think that you’re not getting very much out of this, this set-up, Buck.”

Bucky pulls back enough—he meets no resistence from Steve—to breathe through his mouth before speaking. “I’m gettin’ plenty out of it, believe me.”

“Not nearly as much as we are,” Peggy somehow gets out in one breath. 

“It’s fine.”

Maybe it’s not a lie, but it’s not a satisfactory state of affairs, either. Peggy and Steve catch each other’s eye, parsing through the same dilemma; the metal hand is perfectly serviceable for delicate work, but it’s probably not the best sensation, to say nothing of Bucky’s mixed feelings towards it. Moreover, they can both see and feel Bucky’s flesh arm starting to shake under the weight of Steve’s leg resting atop it. What to do crosses their minds simultaneously, and Steve runs his hand down Peggy’s side as Peggy gently drags Bucky’s hand away from her. 

“I got her, Buck,” Steve says when Bucky looks up again, making sure Bucky sees him reaching down over her hip, to take his place. “It’s okay.”

“But—”

“Bucky,” Peggy interrupts, as firm as she dares to be tonight; she drags Bucky’s hand further down, and finally pushes it away with her fingertips so it’s out of her reach, “touch yourself.”

Steve tenses his leg under Bucky’s metal hand as Bucky stares up at her, slightly gobsmacked; he moves his other one over, so Bucky is neatly bracketed, supported, on both sides. Bucky’s face is almost fever-hot when he hides it for a second in Steve’s thigh, and warms even further when he reaches down to do as Peggy said; Steve squeezes, tightly, the hair still bunched in his hand, and the moan Bucky releases sends delicious shivers up all three of their spines. Steve is almost regretful to lessen his chances of hearing that sound again when he gently urges Bucky back to what he was doing before, but _God_ does Bucky look stunning with his mouth full, like a sculpture or a painting; _Man Worshipping at the Feet of Greek Gods_ , a masterpiece Steve might just have the moxy to draw, after tonight. 

The goddess wrapped in his left arm is equally stunning; too close for him to get a good look at but as sublimely soft when she pushes up needily against him as she is powerful when she towers over him, sitting up on her knees so he can manuever better. He knows her well, how to tease her with his fingers before withdrawing to carress her backside; knows that pulling one of the cups of her top up out of the way with his teeth and then replacing it with slow kisses and quick flicks of his tongue is going to send her hands into his hair. It’s too short for her to actually make much purchase, but the gentle scrape of her nails against his scalp as she tries nevertheless is just as pleasing to him as an actual hold is for Bucky. 

He knows her _too_ well, and that won’t do for tonight. Peggy holds out for as long as she can, distracting her body with the formulation of a gameplan in her mind. When she puts it firmly in place she’s set herself back enough to get timely pleasure out of her plot, and she holds back a self-satisfied smirk. 

“Gentlemen...” She’s been panting too much; she has to wet her throat and try again to be heard. “Gentlemen.”

That’s caught their attention, and she’s not carelessly hasty about setting her hands on Steve’s shoulders and pressuring him to begin laying down. 

“If you don’t mind,” she directs at Bucky, whose mouth has been freed by means of Steve’s surprise. “I’ve an, I’ve an idea.”

“...Go for it,” Bucky says, cleary nonplussed and—rather adorably, she thinks—a little sad to be interrupted. She takes Steve’s hand and pulls it away from Bucky’s hair, pushing it back to lay on the bed, and before Bucky can decide if he’s allowed to protest or not she cups his face, slipping her thumb into his slightly-open mouth and pressing lightly down on his tongue.

“Don’t stop,” she says, reveling in how wide his eyes are, “but don’t, don’t finish, if you can help it.”

She’s able to draw him forward into a kiss, and she flutters her eyelashes against his as she starts to pull away, assuring him that he’ll like what she’s cooked up. Then she crawls up the mattress and, sitting up on her knees, straddles her husband.

She fixes him with her _trust me_ look as she reaches behind her neck, untying the knot there. He either does, or is too far gone to think very much by the time she reaches behind her to unclasp the hooks holding her top up. She amuses herself by drawing the fabric away slowly with her left hand, proudly showing herself off for his never-not-awestruck gaze, and then inelegantly dropping it on Bucky’s head; she thinks his indignant but soft and unoffended “Hey!” as he removes it might set him back enough to be safe. 

As for Steve, his hands have already come up, searching, and she grabs them and presses them against her breasts just as she lowers herself slowly, so he’s sheathed inside her safely. She watches him swallow roughly, and then arch when she rolls her hips forward and back as she unties and tosses away her hip scarf, but she loses sight of him when he carefully pinches her nipples in turn and her head rolls back of its own accord. They’re both suddenly and irrevocably too far gone now, too familiar with and hungry for each other for anything to slow them down; they can only just barely hear Bucky swearing under his increasingly heavy, shallow breath when Steve switches from pinching to teasing with the tip of his fingernail, and Peggy drops like a brick to give her husband a hard, almost-fumbling desperate kiss.

Steve grabs her hips tightly, to steady her, and then thrusts up; she breaks the kiss, turning her head so she doesn’t cry out directly into his face, and Steve seizes the chance to clamp his lips around the shell of her ear, tugging on it with his teeth, sucking on it with his lips. Peggy buries her face in his neck, sucking a bruise into the crook; her hands scramble blindly, running over every inch of Steve that they can reach as she rocks in tandem with him. Steve grabs her shoulders and pushes until she props herself up on her elbows, so he can look her in the eyes; as soon as the contact is made she grinds down as hard and fast as she can without causing pain, and he pulls her face up so he can kiss her, and then puts his hands to her hips again, holding her even more firmly down. 

She knows him well, too, knows where he is; just the right angle, just the right pressure, has him futilely trying to get out “Peg, Peggy, I’m gonna...” before he throws his head back hard enough to arch his spine clear off the bed. She bears down victoriously on his hips, stuttering against her in the air, until he collapses back onto the mattress, breathless and panting by turns, temporarily boneless, nerves flooded. 

“Holy shit,” Bucky whispers from beside the bed, and Peggy fails to bite back a proud smile. Steve’s hair is coated with sweat, and Peggy lovingly combs her fingers through it as Steve comes back to the present with a red face. 

"Oh my God, Peggy..." Steve murmurs, half mortified, half unabashedly sated. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean..." She interrupts him with a gracious, soft kiss to his lips. "I didn't mean to..."

“No, no, shh,” Peggy whispers, only now becoming aware of how out-of-breath she also is. “Shh, I meant to, it’s all right, I...” 

Her thoughts are in a momentary whirl, and she gives them time to arrange themselves as her mouth rains a handful of staccato kisses over Steve’s face. The last one is a fermata that fades out slowly, almost reluctantly, but she’s got more plans for the evening; she extricates herself from Steve carefully and turns over to recline beside him, propped up against the pillows and headbord instead of laying on her back. 

“Bucky? Could you come here, darling?”

Bucky’s not sure if he can ever move again, honestly; every part of him, even his right hand, feels frozen by what’s already come before now. His atrophy is partially broken when Peggy reaches for her towel and tries to lay it out neatly lengthwise underneath her; but only enough to let him then his head, to look at Steve. 

Steve seems dazed, too, but in a satiated way; his hand lazily lifts up and falls through the air, to stroke Bucky’s face. Instinctively Bucky catches and holds his hand, and Steve gives him a look of such pure adoration that tears almost spring to his eyes. Steve looks away, to give the same look to Peggy just as much to let Bucky recover from it; Peggy sees it, and leans down to kiss her husband again, soft, slow, and Bucky gathers himself enough that, with the help of Steve’s hand, he can get to his feet and pad wobbily over to Peggy’s side of the bed. 

Peggy reaches up for him, directing him to kneel on the bed, and just like Steve before she brackets him between her legs. She takes her face in her hands, giving him a kiss to match the one she gave Steve, and then rests her forehead against his. 

“Couldn’t let Steve have this lovely sweet mouth all to himself tonight,” she says, tracing his lips with a finger, just light-hearted enough to let him feel safe to protest if he needs. 

He doesn’t protest, though he does look down, to catch his breath. Peggy kisses the crown of his head as Steve turns over onto his side, laying his hand on Peggy’s thigh where it curves into her pelvis, ready to keep her going if Bucky needs more time than what she has. 

“Don’t be greedy, Steve,” Bucky mutters as he lowers down, arranging himself on his elbows. 

“Can’t help it,” Steve laughs, even as Bucky lays a kiss on the back of Steve’s hand. “If you had everything I have, you’d be greedy with it, too.”

Bucky blushes, and Peggy does too, and Steve doesn’t so much pull his hand away as he does pull on Peggy’s leg, spreading it out further from its twin. Bucky blushes harder, and it’s Peggy’s turn to feel his hot face press into her thigh. The warmth he leaves behind is cooled by the damp run of his tongue, and anticipation deserts her so thoroughly when he kisses the edges of her nymphae that she jerks back into the pillows as it happens. 

Bucky looks up at her, not sure whether to be stricken or not by her sudden movement; she reaches forward, puts her hands on the back of his head, and guides him back down, not rough but hurriedly, and he supposes that’s his answer. 

Steve draws his hand up, tracing over Peggy’s stomach, rib cage, breast; at her shoulder he sits up and pulls her hair out of the way, to kiss her throat, letting his hand drop so his fingertips stroke over the back of Bucky’s neck. Peggy shifts on her hips as the touch eggs Bucky on, the soft capture and release of his lips becoming interspersed with more purposeful licks of his tongue; her endgoal for this turn of events seems especially advantangeous for _her_ now, as well as Bucky. 

She turns her head, peppering Steve’s face with a flurry of kisses, and then she tilts her head, glancing sideways at Bucky. Steve gets what she means almost immediately, and after another kiss straightens up even further, onto his knees, and inches down the bed after his hand as he trails it all the way down Bucky’s spine. 

Bucky’s at least partly paying attention to what Steve is doing, but nonetheless his eyes roll back and his knees threaten to collapse underneath him when Steve’s right hand wraps around his cock, his left settling on the nape of his neck. His moan reverberates through Peggy’s body, sending shivers all the way down to her toes, curling them into the mattress as she answers his call with her own. Steve bends his head down, pressing kisses in the space between Bucky’s side and his spine, occasionally bringing his left hand down to trace haphazard patterns along his back but never taking his right hand away, moving it only as he had moved Bucky’s head before, not driving but unrelentingly steady. He’s never forgotten where and how Bucky likes to be touched. 

It’s clouding Bucky’s mind, leaving him with no thoughts except to try to remain upright and to keep pleasuring Peggy. He mouths at her more deliberately, pressures her with his tongue before and as he moves it, draws back to kiss her legs and around her mons before returning, to slide his tongue inside her. At that Peggy gives a shuddering gasp, one hand leaving his hair to fling itself backwards over her mouth, and he takes that as a request to do it again. Peggy moans, loudly; her thighs press up tight against Bucky's ears, and her hips writhe as Bucky explores her for a few seconds and then withdraws, to mouth at her before he does it again. 

Steve slows and eases his movements, transfixed as Peggy keeps one hand clamped in Bucky's hair, the other pressed against her own mouth. He can see on her face, hear in her high-pitched breaths, how tender Bucky's ministrations are, how steadfast; he remembers Bucky's mouth wrapped around him, warm and sweet and pliant, and his grip on Bucky firms up just a little bit, his strokes speeding up to match, his kisses turning more insistent. A swipe of Steve’s fingers along the tip makes Bucky jerk his head back, his face burying itself in the towel beneath him as he tries to regain his composure; he gets it back before either of his partners can ask if he’s all right and returns to Peggy immediately, mouthing at her hungrily before kissing her clitoris, hard. Her hips buck up against his face at that, and he slides his hands underneath her, to hold her steady and knead her labia with his thumbs as he does it again, and again, and again—

Peggy comes when Bucky slips his tongue inside her, pushing his face up as her hips arch, and he remains hovering over her when she drops back down, her bones and muscles temporarily turned to jelly, both of them struggling to catch their breath. Bucky’s just barely gotten his back when he sways, and Steve seizes his chance to lift Bucky up, urging him to turn over and sit properly. Peggy has her breath and strength back now, too, enough to reach for Bucky and pull him back against her, one arm draped around his chest, the other bracing his head as she buries her face in his neck, eagerly sucking on a patch of skin that she remembers always drove him wild. Steve comes closer too, taking Bucky in hand again and kissing him at the same time, catching the shout Bucky gives; he tastes like Peggy as well as himself and _fuck_ , Peggy is a genius, she’s amazing, Bucky is amazing, and no one is this lucky, ever. 

Bucky whimpers as the seconds fly by, tensing up even while he shifts desperately in their hold, trying to brace himself. The taste of them lingers in his mouth, in his mind; the feel of them surrounds him, cushions him like warm water, like the first bath he took after coming home; and it’s too much, it’s not enough, it’s everything and it’s _his_ and—

Peggy imagines, and Steve sees, his eyes go impossibly wide and then flutter shut as he finally comes in Steve’s hand, toes digging into the bed and hands clutching at Peggy’s arm like a drowning man clutches a lifeline as Steve’s hand coaxes, so gently, so insistently, every last bit of pleasure out of him until he’s utterly, beautifully, spent. 

Steve watches him melt back into Peggy with an almost worshipful gaze, wiping his hand on the towel without looking at it. Peggy looks back at him with the same eyes, and he leans in to kiss her, to tell her wordlessly how wonderful she is.

Bucky, for his part, seems to be having trouble keeping his eyes more than half-open; his response to his own kiss a little delayed, but not unenthused. Steve finally tears his eyes away, to pull the towel out from under him and use the free end to wipe away the mess that had landed on Bucky; he stands, and carefully brings Bucky up with him, so Peggy can clean herself up as well. 

Bucky sways on his feet, and clings to Steve like a limpet, his face disappearing in Steve’s neck. Peggy picks up the towel and stands, balling it up so only the clean areas show. 

“I’ll, um...I’ll go put the towels in the tub,” she says. “We can rinse them out in the morning, before housekeeping shows.”

“Stay?” Bucky asks, below a whisper, one syllable somehow managing to come out with ragged edges. 

The towel immediately drops to the floor with a soft _thwump_ , and Peggy wraps her arms around both men. Someone moves first, none of them are sure who, but they sit down as one, Bucky in the middle holding both of their hands, Steve and Peggy’s feet tangled together on the floor. 

“Are you all right, darling?” Peggy asks, brushing Bucky’s hair out of his face and behind his ear as her stomach clenches. “We didn’t...did we upset you somehow?”

Bucky shakes his head quickly; draws a shuddering breath.

“...Are you sure?” Steve asks, feeling his hands start to shake. 

Bucky knows he’s got tears forming in his eyes, but he hopes his smile is as wide as it is watery.

“Yeah. Yeah, I just...I forgot. What it felt like. I knew what to do, I guess I remembered, or my body did in any case, muscle memory or something, but...not how I’d, how we’d feel. I forgot. And now I...now I know.”

He swallows, and blinks, failing to clear out his eyes but looking at his partners anyway, one and then the other.

“And I’m...and I’m happy,” he chokes out as a few tears finally fall, cool and almost soothing on his face; his swollen throat the sweetest pain. “I’m so happy, you guys, I...”

“It’s...it’s a bit overwhelming, isn’t it?” Peggy almost-laughs, after a long moment of him trying to find any words sufficient for this, and Bucky nods, not letting go of their hands when he wipes his eyes. Peggy does the same to her own face, with Bucky’s hand; Steve drops his face so his eyes rest on Bucky’s shoulder, and they’re somewhat clear when he lifts his head again.

“Me too, Buck,” Steve manages to whisper, bringing Bucky’s hand up to kiss it, his last pent-up nerve dissolving, finally making room for unreserved joy. “I’m, I’m happy too.”

Peggy nods, because it will take too long until she can talk but she needs to stand with them on this; she wipes at her eyes again, and sniffles before she can stop herself. Bucky turns his face, gently kissing her cheek, and Steve strokes her ankle with his toes, making her giggle, and in doing so clear her throat. 

“Well.” She squeezes Bucky’s hand, thumps it against her leg. “What shall...what shall we do now?”

Bucky shuts his eyes lightly, thinking, until the darkness he put himself in, and the swaying he can feel himself doing, provides the answer. 

“Can we just...lay down together, for a bit?”

Peggy glances over at Steve, who nods, shrugging lightly. He makes to stand, knowing that there are pajamas among the clothes that had been delivered, but Bucky holds fast to his hand as he tries to get up. 

“If we could...stay like this, for awhile. Please.”

Steve looks at him, and a raw smile stretches across his lips. “Sure.”

They do, reluctantly, separate themselves just long enough to clambor across the bed. The towels had been a wise precaution; the comforter is clean, and it fluffs up nicely as they crawl underneath it. The room is already warm, the building’s heating system having been turned on with the fall equinox, and the comforter immediately proves to be a heat trap, so they’re more than warm enough even without any nightclothes.

“You know we never got to do this during the war,” Steve says once they’re safely under the covers, his head tucked in close to Bucky’s, hand stretched across him to stroke Peggy’s arm. “To...to _bask in the afterglow_ , or whatever.”

“ _Or whatever_ ,” Bucky repeats, with a slightly wet laugh, and Peggy snickers into the back of his shoulder. They’re pressed in close on either side of him, readying themselves for the other shoe to drop; sometimes, they’ve learned, even getting back a happy thing can unleash a flood of grief over having lost it in the first place. 

Bucky thinks—hopes, prays—it won’t happen tonight, but he wouldn’t have them any other place right now, in any case. 

Steve makes a face at him that quickly melts into a kiss on the bridge of his nose and a sad smile. “Yeah, we always had to...get dressed immediately.”

“If we’d got any sort of _undressed_ at all,” Peggy mumbles, lacing her fingers with Steve’s and dragging them forward, so their hands rest on Bucky’s hip. 

Bucky nods. He doesn’t remember, but here and now, sheltered between the only two people he’s ever willingly knelt for, he can believe, and that means almost as much.

After a moment he thinks to laugh, to say _Imagine if **this** was the picture that got released to the public_. But Peggy’s breathing is deep and even against the back of his neck, and Steve curls up against him like he’s still a ninety-pound teenager heat-seeking in his sleep, and for once in his newly reclaimed life, Bucky is okay with forgetting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art history meta/in-joke: Classical Greek art disdained large penises as being undignified. If you ever see a Greek male nude and he has a huge schlong, it’s meant to be either a comedic or grotesque (and possibly racist) image, or a religious artifact dedicated to Dionysus, the god of—among other things—chaotic, unbridled sexuality. Idealized male nudes would always feature a very small penis. So my Steve literally does resemble a statue of a Greek god. 
> 
> Also, Greek depictions of females were almost always clothed (you can _never_ overestimate how androcentric ancient Greek society was); even when it comes to images of Aphrodite, you’ve got good chances of seeing her at least partially dressed. So while Peggy’s outfit isn’t particularly Greek, she’s within that tradition, at least for part of it. 
> 
> This is what I do with my degree, folks.


	6. Checking Out Every Frame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: referenced dysphoria; misogyny/slut-shaming; mentions of Bucky’s standard Trauma Conga Line and people being absolutely awful/victim-blamey about it. There’s a gif embedded in the body of the story so if anyone is sensitive to that, be aware.**

_Bzzzt. Bzzzt. Bzzzt._

It’s Bucky who wakes first, on the other side of Steve from where he started. Sometime during the early hours he had wormed his way out of bed to use the bathroom, and upon returning found that Steve had heat-sought in his sleep and snuggled up to Peggy. That suited Bucky just fine, and he slotted himself into the space Steve had vacated. 

Consequently it’s he who is closest to Steve’s phone when it starts to vibrate, and he who crawls out of bed to the opposite one, to answer it. He knows it’s not a mission, otherwise Peggy’s phone would be going off as well, so he’s only mildly anxious about picking it up.

**Tony**

_Wakey-wakey eggs and (kosher) (turkey to be specific) bakey! What time does the Golden Trio plan on getting extracted?_

A quick glance at the top of the screen reveals it to be 8:02am. A quick glance behind him sees Steve rolling over, and Peggy stretching behind him. 

“Tony wants to know when we wanna leave.”

Steve makes a drawn out _nnnnnnnn_ noise, and Peggy pulls the blanket tighter around her neck. 

“When-e-ver is good for you,” Bucky sounds out as he types.

**Tony**

_Helpful as always_  
_Pepper says to expect us around 11. Shes gonna get her board meeting on and then we’re gonna come get you guys_  
_Might not wanna look at the news in the meantime_  


Bucky stares at last message for a moment, biting his bottom lip and cursing himself for not letting Tony know it was him that he was talking to. He probably wouldn’t have said anything in that case.

He texts back _Ok thanks_ and sets Steve’s phone back on the second bed, before turning to his own. Steve’s eyes are open, drooped sleepily but happy to be looking at Bucky, and Bucky makes himself smile into them. He’s got maybe another three hours of this respite, checkered as it has been, and he’s gonna enjoy it. 

“Tony and Pepper are gonna pick us up around 11,” he reports.

“Kay...” Steve drawls, and Peggy expands the herculean effort to press up against Steve’s back and rest her cheek on his arm. Bucky situates himself on the floor once again, feeling both the urge to blush and the urge to wink at his partners. He solves the dilemma by resting his head against the side of the mattress so it hides his face, removing the necessity for any sort of expression. 

He looks up again at sound of the mattress and covers groaning, and Steve splutters as Peggy inelegantly clambers her way over him. He mouths somewhat toothily at her neck as “punishment” once she’s settled in front of him, her back to his chest; she lightly kicks him with her heel and then snuggles back, tangling their feet while her hand settles on Bucky’s hair. 

“How’re you feeling?”

“Good.” The blush wins out as Peggy winds several strands of his hair around her pointer finger and then pulls herself free. 

“Yeah?” Steve prompts.

“Mmhmm. But...”

There had been moments last night that he’d been struck with sudden terror, and worse, the urge to go completely passive under their hands. Not enough, never enough to make him regret it, but something he’d like to...phase out, he supposes is realistic.

“I think we’re gonna have to, gonna have to practice some more, so we can. Y’know. Improve the experience.”

Steve’s so goddamn adorable when his face pinks, and Peggy when she bites her lip to not-quite-hide a smirk. Steve tucks his face into the back of Peggy’s neck, breathing on her in such a way that it tickles; she scrunches up her face and squirm-stretches, clutching at the arm he’s flung over her, and Bucky reaches over to grab Steve’s phone. 

“Look up, you guys,” Bucky says, reversing the camera and watching them on the screen as they do as bade. Their expressions go confused for a moment, then ease into smiles, and they arrange themselves so that all three of their faces can be seen when Bucky takes the picture.

In the next photo they make faces. In the third he turns his head to kiss Peggy’s cheek. In the fourth Steve’s leaned over his wife to kiss Bucky’s temple. The fifth is unintentionally silly and a little off-center as they attempt a three-person liplock and Bucky isn’t that conscientious about taking a good picture. 

Strangers unconcerned with who they hurt on their way to getting what they want aren’t the only ones who get to document his life. 

He lightly tosses the phone back onto the other bed and carefully climbs over his partners, so he lays in the open space to Steve’s right. Immediately both of the other two turn over, and Steve pulls back the blanket so Bucky can slide underneath. He curls into Steve as soon as he does so, head tucked in under his chin, and he lightly traces the tip of one metal finger over Steve’s chest.

“When did this get to be okay?” Bucky asks softly, after a moment. He’d been reeducated on Steve and Peggy’s bodies, but with the lack of pictures both within and without his memory, he’s had a hard time conjuring up any image of what Steve looked like back in the before.

“It was, ah...around thirty...’37, ’38?” Steve says, a tad hesitantly; Peggy slips her foot between his ankles. “A little after I started on the, on the testosterone.”

“Mhm.” 

“Worked wonders. I started lettin’ you look at me, then. And after the serum, ah, stretched me out...it wasn’t any sort of issue anymore.”

Bucky nods, daring to settle a few more fingertips on Steve’s chest. If he can’t remember, at least he can _know_ , and that’s almost as good.

“They weren’t anything to write home about even before that, though,” Steve continues, with a sardonic laugh. “I was too skinny to be real, uh, real chesty. Wasn’t nobody paintin’ them on the sides of planes or anything.”

“Unlike mine,” Peggy muses under her breath, just minutely pushing up against Steve’s back.

“I’m sorry?” Steve asks, turning his head; Bucky cranes his neck.

“ _No~_ ,” Peggy assures, and then winks heavily.

“You’re kidding me,” Bucky says.

“Yes of course, darling; I am...” she frees her foot, “ab-so-lute-ly...” she slithers across Steve; both men move to lay somewhat more on their backs then on their sides, to let her plant her knees between their respective legs, “taking the mickey with you,” Peggy finishes, sitting up fully, an evil little smirk on her face. “It’s not as though any of the others were in any position to be painting RAF planes.”

Bucky grabs her arm, frown-pouting, and Peggy giggles her way into a grin. 

“So possessive, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Is that bad?” Bucky asks, between teasing and worried.

“Just characteristic,” she smiles down at him.

“Not just of _you_ ,” Steve aims at Bucky, even as he squeezes Peggy’s thigh.

“Or you,” Peggy directs at Steve, contritely unrepentant; she wiggles on her hips against both men’s legs, and Bucky reaches up to run a finger down her stomach, netting a happy little hum in response.

“You two’re okay, right?” he asks after a beat.

“More than,” Peggy says, encircling his wrist with her fingers and sliding them down his forearm. 

She looks in his eyes as she says so, and Bucky smiles back into them before he glances at Steve. He’s just barely turned his head before Steve leans over to kiss him, slow, and awed in an unsurprised way.

“All right then,” Bucky mumble-smiles against Steve’s mouth once Steve pulls away.

“That being said...” Both men look back at Peggy, who regards them with a deadly serious expression. “If you gentlemen don’t object, I think we could stand to, ahem, _practice_ , some more. In order to improve the experience.”

She maintains her countenance for a handful of seconds, before it dissolves into something a little bashful, a little giddy. Steve squeezes her leg again, and then rubs it; Bucky shifts around until he can worm his way into sitting up against the headboard. Peggy leans into the arms he holds out for her, and he pulls her into his lap perpendicular to him, so her legs lay under Steve’s arm once he lifts it out of the way.

“I don’t object,” Bucky murmurs in her ear, nosing at her hairline.

Steve flips over onto his stomach and comes up on his hands and knees, stretching his back out; Peggy draws her knees back, to knead his side with her toes.

“We’re gonna be those Weird Towel People, I hope you guys realize.”

“Y’know?” Bucky says, grinning. “I’m okay with that.”

*

They’re picked up in a much more subdued fashion than they were dropped off; Tony and Pepper merely pull up alongside a shaded corner of the hotel, and since the day is sunny they merely obscure their faces with the sunglasses and suitably pulled-low baseball hats that had been dropped off with their clothes as they check out of the hotel and file into the backseat. Pepper has elected to drive—apparently the adrenaline rush of driving in the city is a fun stress release for her—and Tony turns around in the front passenger seat with a pink box in his hands, peering at them over the rim of his own sunglasses.

“‘Morning,” he says, as Peggy, the least broad and therefore relegated to the middle seat, takes the box from him. “These are your Congrats On The Sex doughnuts.”

“Our, our, our-our what?” Steve splutters. 

“Well, they _were_ your Sorry About The Shitty Thing That Happened To You doughnuts, but look at Barnes.” Tony nods towards Bucky, who had taken his sunglasses off once his door was shut. “Glowing like a shiny new arc reactor. I could stick his finger in a socket and power the building for two months.”

“Tony, it’s not even noon yet,” Pepper chides, as Bucky’s face warms, shy and more than a little delighted.

“What? Regular sexual activity is good for the elderly. Maintains their cardiovascular health.” Steve, red-faced behind Tony, kicks the back of his seat. “ _Mo~m_ , Steve is _kicking me_.”

“Good, you deserve it.” Pepper glances in the rearview mirror, surveying the row of flustered, to varying degrees, faces in the backseat. “Good morning, you guys. Did you manage to have a decent day yesterday? _At the Faire?_ ”

The triad exchange glances, awkward laughs holding the place of an actual answer for a few seconds.

“For the most part,” Bucky finally answers. “I had a...a moment.”

“How bad?” Tony asks, suddenly all-business.

“Not bad,” Bucky hastens to assure; Tony’s seem him at—stopped him during—some of his lowest moments. “Nothin’ that...no one was in any danger. At any point.”

“Okay. Good.” Tony pauses, indulging in one of his not-as-uncommon-as-expected thoughtful moments. “Are you gonna be okay if we discuss some topical and un-fun things on the way back?”

There’s a collective sigh that runs through the entire backseat.

“One sec,” Steve mumbles, before turning hsi head smartly towards Peggy and dropping his voice into the lowest register he can. “Cheep-cheep-cheep...”

Bucky snorts. Peggy tsks, rolls her eyes, and shoves one of the chocolate glazed munchkins into Steve’s mouth.

“All right, maybe keep your fetishes in the bedroom, you guys.”

“ _Tony._ ”

“All right, what’s the bad news?” Bucky asks, grimacing; Peggy licks her fingers clean of sugar and then drops her hand into his.

“Well, the buzz shows no sign of dying down,” Pepper sighs. “Granted, it’s only been a day, but things have...taken off considerably. The photos are almost universally believed to be authentic, and people really, _really_ don’t like that.”

“You’re trending,” Tony informs them, holding up his StarkPad to show it already opened to Twitter; Peggy puts the doughnut box on Bucky’s lap so she can claim the Pad and keep his hands busy.

“Hashtag-Leave-Her-Steve...hashtag-Carter-Go-Home,” Peggy reads aloud dryly as she scrolls; she almost looks somewhat amused. “Hashtag-Cap-Deserves-Better...well that one’s positive, at least.”

“Like I could possibly _do_ better,” Steve mutters. 

“Huh,” Peggy says, stilling her thumb against the pad.

“What is it?”

“Oh, nothing. I just realized I haven’t been called eine Schlampe since 1945.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Steve demands, beating Bucky to it; Peggy turns the Pad towards him, and Steve snatches it out of her hands. 

“Ye~ah, did I mention you’re trending _internationally_?” Tony pipes up. “With numbers comparable to back in April, just in the polar opposite direction.”

“It’s the price of fame,” Pepper says, knowing full well how unpalatable such a truth is. “For _months_ after Tony and I started dating I literally had handwritten letters calling me a... _truly_ colorful assortment of vulgarities being sent to _my parents’ house_ from all over the world.”

“And I was ready to make some heads roll, too,” Tony says, as dark as he is sympathetic. 

“This is insane,” Steve mutters. Bucky is trying to crane his neck enough to see the StarkPad, and Steve brings it up closer to his face as if inspecting it, angling it away from Bucky. “There is literally a fucking petition going around for Peggy to have her citizenship revoked.”

“There’s _what?_ ” Bucky snaps.

“It can’t happen,” Pepper says immediately.

“I was awarded citizenship because I participated in the battle against Loki, darling,” Peggy says, clasping her hand over Bucky’s. “It’s not dependent on Steve at all. So even if our marriage _was_ fraudulent and we divorced, I wouldn’t have to go back to England unless I wanted to.”

“Oh, and there’s a petition for you to get divorced, too,” Tony pipes up again. “Well, it’s more of a sign-if-you-agree-they-should-split-up circlejerk rather than a proper petition, but...”

“This is nuts,” Bucky mumurs, shaking his head; whatever glow he had entered the car with has dimmed enough to vanish. “This is...is there anything we can do about this?” he directs at Pepper and Tony. “Just...anything at all?”

Pepper sighs again, and blows a stray clump of hair out of her face. “Well. You _can_ ignore it; let it all blow over. Eventually it _will_ become old news.”

“I could do something outrageous and ill-advised to get the focus off of you quicker,” Tony offers. 

“ _No_ , Tony.”

“The offer is appreciated, Tony, but no thank you,” Steve says, gamely even through his clenched jaw. 

“Aside from that...” Pepper shrugs tightly, keeping her hands on the wheel. “You could always come out with the actual truth.”

“Oh certainly; let’s have our _actual_ business broadcasted to the whole world, not just the lies,” Peggy says, rolling her eyes heavenward. 

“Well...it _is_ out there, you know,” Tony says. “The idea is. There’s a book about it. And a History Channel special.”

“And you.”

Tony, to his credit, puts up his hands contritely. “I can promise you there will be no repeat of my little outburst two years ago. But, you _will_ notice that no one seemed terribly shocked.”

“Well everyone _was_ kinda preoccupied at the time,” Steve protests, but without much fire behind it. No journalist they’ve ever encountered has dared ask about the rumors or the Driscoll book—a frighteningly accurate thesis for all the information the author had no access to, based on the excerpts they’ve read—except for paparazzi, whom they’ve learned are acceptable to ignore. But back in April Sam had accepted the idea that Steve and Peggy both were interested in him quite readily, so they know there’s a probably decent-sized demographic of people willing to believe it.

“Can we release a statement saying “everyone shut up and mind your own business”?” Bucky mutters darkly. 

“Well, it’s certainly _possible_ ,” Pepper says with a weak laugh. “It would probably backfire, though.”

“So we ought to...?” Peggy starts.

“It’s up to you. If you think you can _get away_ with releasing a statement saying “it’s not what it looks like” then you might want to think about doing that, but...” 

“Friendly reminder that I’m always down for doing something regrettable and attention-grabbing,” Tony says. “Just keepin’ that door open.”

From the corner of his eye Steve sees Bucky reaching for the StarkPad, and he leans forward, stretching his arm over Tony’s seat and dropping it in the man’s lap. 

“What about the photographer? Any word on what we can do with him?”

“Tough call,” Pepper admits, as Bucky gapes at Steve. “It was definitely against the law, what he did. And it’s within your rights to sue for damages. _But_ anything you do is going to draw attention and drag this whole mess out. So, it’s really about which you want more. Peace or vengeance.”

“Well, we’re not called the Pacifists, are we?” Peggy muses. Steve brushes his pinky finger against her thigh, and Bucky watches them fit an entire conversation in a few seconds of side-eye. 

“Can we think about it some more?” Bucky asks, making sure to sound appropriately sullen. “Or is there a, a time limit to anything?”

“Nothing that’s gonna come up immediately,” Pepper says. 

“All right.” He looks at his partners, hoping that they feel the difference in the degree of eye contact and directness. “‘Cause I’m thinking I oughtta talk about all of this with Carolyn; see what she says might be best.” An hour or so of his Tuesday mornings are spent with Dr. Carolyn Fields, one of Sam’s professional acquaintances. “That’s, that’s okay with you guys, right?”

“Of course,” Peggy says, and Steve nods, and while Pepper chimes in with “That’s probably a good idea,” Bucky spears a munchkin on his metal pinky finger and shoves it whole, almost petulantly, into his mouth.

*

**flash** @aaaaaahhhhhhh  
@CaptainAmericaOfficial maybe u shoulda let @IAmIronMan kill #TheFuckboyofHydra when u had the chance

 **dontblink** @blinkandyoudie  
@aaaaaahhhhhhh hes still got the chance

*

**steve-rogers-fan-club-prez**  
all right so we all know what a cunt peggy carter is but???? can we talk about???? what a total pos bucky barnes turned out to be???

like here is your best friend that you’ve known basically your whole life. yiu grow up together. he risks his own life to save yours at a pow camp. then he aaves your life again years later after youve been captured and tortured and brainwashed for 70 years. you nearly kill him in the process but he stays w/you at the hospital and takes you home w/ him so you can continue getting the care and protection you need.

and after all that u fuck his wife. wth.

  
**blueflowerredthorns**  
smash that mf reblog button if you regret signing a petition to pardon sgt james buchanan barnes  
**tyrannosaurus-sex**  
I have never reblogged anything faster in my life  
394,773 notes

*

**11faeries**  
I will never understand people who cheat. I will never understand people who are willing to sleep with someone who is already spoken for.  
**narutosasukepotter**  
if you are a cheater or ever helped someone cheat on their significant other unfollow me now. that shit destroys lives. all cheaters can burn.  
**trulytrulytrulyoutrageous**  
#christ i can’t even imagine how fucking devastated cap must be right now #his wife and his best friend #barnes couldve murdered him on that helicarrier #and it would probably hurt him less #and they did it in cAPS OWN LIVING ROOM #PROBABLY WHILE HE WAS AWAY ON A MISSION #like how fucking awful can two people be????? #so yeah #bucky barnes can fuck right off #and take peggy carter with him (via narutosasukepotter)  
431,174 notes

*

**onesonglory**  
I’m about to get real personal here folks. This whole “Peggy Carter cheated on Steve Rogers with Bucky Barnes” thing has been actually really hard for me to take. Some of you know that I didn’t really have a ton of friends growing up—in fact I was kinda the designated Bullied Kid—and to pass the time I read a lot of comics, and especially the old Captain America comics. The original 1942-46 run that my grandpa collected. Instead of playing tag or jump rope with other kids, I went on adventures with Captain America and his Howling Commandos, rescuing hostages and fighting Nazis and preserving The American Way. 

And my favorite Commando out of all of them was James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky Barnes was the friend I could only dream about having. It’s not just that he was always written as fun to be around. It’s not just that he was smart and into science and math and was a nerd like me. He was loyal and always had been, from the time he and Cap were small. No matter what crap conditions they were in, no matter what harebrained schemes Cap pulled out of his hat, he was always right behind him, supporting him even when the other Commandos had doubts. I never had anyone like that, except in fantasy. When other kids picked on me, when my gym clothes got stolen, when guys would fake ask me out, I would always imagine that I had Sgt. Barnes to dust me off, cheer me up, and go kick some ass if I asked him to. It’s the only thing that kept me sane through years and years of bullying. 

It ripped my heart out to hear about everything Hydra did to him and what they made him do, but at least we all knew that his actions as the Winter Soldier weren’t his choice. This, though...this he did of his own free will. It was his choice to hook up with his best friend’s wide, his choice to break Captain America’s trust in one of the worst, most personal ways imaginable. 

This proves that my worst fears are true. There is no such thing as real friendship. People are only loyal until they want something you have, and then it’s all over. I’m giving up on the idea of ever having a Bucky Barnes, because even Captain America doesn’t have a Bucky Barnes.

In the immortal words of Jeff Goldbulm, “God I hate being right all the time.”  
#personal for ts #bucky barnes #pls don’t rb #delete later  
38 notes

*

**thehandymaam**  
ok but is anyone actually _surprised_ that bucky barnes screwed over captain america???? u think hydra picked barnes at _random???_ Hydra is like the ultimate fuckboy convention and you think they WOULDN’T use the type of person whose capable of fucking over their bff like that????? why yall actin brand new  
**i-came-in-like-a-bowling-ball**  
M I N D B L O W N  
**jurassicmark**  
I think it’s worse than that. I think Bucky Barnes did this _because_ he was with Hydra so long.

Hear me out.

So Hydra spent like seventy years fucking with this guy’s brain, right? All that wiping and electrocuting and freezing and just overt torture is gonna make some permanent changes. Not to mention all the propaganda and reeducation being fed to him. You know, all that classic fascist behavior. And what was Hydra teaching him? What does Hydra value most? Taking what you want and fuck everyone else.

So even if they started out with a person who wouldn’t betray his best friend like this, after seventy years of this shit, is it really unbelievable that Barnes would _become_ that person? You don’t just shrug off that sort of brainwashing. It sucks, because it was an unwilling association, but like my grandmother always said, if you lie down with dogs, you rise up with fleas.  
20,384 notes

*

**So Is It Too Late to Revoke Bucky Barnes’ Pardon or What?**  
BuzzFeed News • 2 hours ago

*

“The thing is.”

“Mmhmm?” Carolyn prompts, after Bucky pauses for a whole note. 

“The thing is.”

The thing is, Bucky’s got new instincts and impulses; flashes of faces and hands and voices, and a mind that knows to fear them. Steve and Peggy meanwhile have all the leaked documents they’d forced themselves to read. 

“I’m not sure if I should...if I _should_ even, ah, investigate further.”

“And why is that?”

The thing is, they’ve never told him not to look. They wouldn’t dare. But they don’t _need_ to when Bucky has, on his way to the kitchen, ended up hiding in the living room instead because he sees Steve hunched over at the kitchen table, shoulders shaking, his face buried in his arms. They don’t need to when he confides the sight in Peggy and she tells him to let her take care of Steve; that all he needs to do is concentrate on getting better himself, and she can’t quite look him in the eyes when she does. 

Bucky shrugs; puts up his hands. “If they...I mean, if they don’t want me to look, then there’s probably a reason for it, right? I know they’re tryin’ to look after me and all...”

The thing is, sometimes Bucky doesn’t know who among the three of them has cried the most since he came home.

Carolyn considers for a moment. “Just...knowing how people can be about celebrities, I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff being said that could be...could be triggering, for you.”

“...I did have a panic attack at the Faire,” Bucky admits. “Because...I overheard some people talking about it. In a really...it was bad. And I...I shut down. Completely. We had to leave.”

Carolyn nods. “So I can see why your partners are concerned.” Bucky almost laughs. “To be honest, I’m not entirely convinced that engaging in this whole thing would be terribly therapeutic for you, either.”

Bucky drags a hand through his hair, cordons off a section of it next to his neck, and starts braiding it. “So I should just...let it go?”

“Is there a reason you don’t want to?”

Bucky rakes his fingers through the plait, undoing it, and immediately begins to reform it. Carolyn folds her hands loosely, and waits. 

“We...me and Peggy and Steve...we had...we, um. We had, we had sex for the first time on Sunday. Since I came back, I mean.”

Carolyn nods slowly, inviting more information. 

“And I was...well, we _all_ were, we were all pretty...pretty nervous, going in, like I knew Steve was scared that it was gonna go south, ‘cause he said as much, he said he couldn’t do it if it was, ah... _just another traumatic thing_ for me. And Peggy, too, she was more...more subtle about it, but I could tell.”

“Could they possibly have been afraid of it traumatizing themselves, as much as you?” Bucky bobs from side to side, reluctantly allowing for it. “That’s not a dig against them, just so you know, I’m not trying to...you know, love’s a funny thing. When you care about someone you tend to take on their pain as your own. You might not get the, the full extent of it, but you feel it; it becomes your own pain, your own hurt.”

“Yeah.”

“And the thing about humans is that we are naturals at trying to avoid feeling pain. It’s instinctive. Which is useful when it means something like, say, _don’t play in traffic_. Just not so useful when it means, for example, avoiding intimacy.”

Bucky nods, a little emphatically. 

“But it sounds like you pushed through it,” Carolyn prompts. 

“We did.”

“And...?”

Bucky has never felt so consistently flushed in his life, at least post-Hydra. “And it was...it was amazing.”

“That’s wonderful,” Carolyn replies, smiling soft and wide. “I’m happy for you.” 

“It wasn’t, it wasn’t _perfect_ , like we still...we had to stop and catch our breaths a few times, and I...there were times when the, when it felt like the Asset was gonna come out.” Bruce’s method of characterizing Banner and the Hulk as two separate personalities has proven quite handy, if in need of tweaking. Bucky has _Bucky_ and two others; the Asset and the Soldier, essentially the same model of compliance, but the Soldier is capable of violence. (He has Wednesdays with Dr. Ludgate for trying to deal with them specifically.)

“Which is not...it’s not inconceivable that that would happen to you.”

“But I kept a lid on him, and they...they didn’t back out at any point. We all, ehm...” The back of his neck warms. “Well we came out pretty happy. I mean we cried, but...”

“Happy tears. Maybe...relieved?”

“...Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Peggy called it overwhelming, but it was in a good way.”

“Mmhmm. So. You let yourselves get caught up in the moment, it sounds like. You went for it, and it worked out.”

Bucky nods. “And what I’m...so what I’m thinking is that...if I was able to do _that_ , then shouldn’t I...like maybe it’s too soon to look at my files, but looking at the stuff that’s going on _now_...”

Carolyn inhales, and exhales a long “Hmmm,” and it’s Bucky’s turn to wait.

“I do see your point,” she finally says. “And make no mistake, Bucky, you’ve made a _tremendous_ amount of progress in a very short amount of time, precisely because you’ve been pushing yourself. _But_. What you’ve been doing so far and what you’re thinking of doing now are...two separate goals, let’s say?”

Bucky tilts his head slightly.

“Well, take the other day. The circumstances that, ah, motivated you to leave the Tower notwithstanding, you did choose to go, and you managed to have an actual nice day with your partners. Panic attack aside, of course. Am I right?”

“Yeah.” Bucky can’t help but smile despite himself. “We had...I think I forgot what fun _was_ , ‘til Sunday. And I ain’t seen either of them smile so much since...definitely not since I came home.”

“So pushing yourself in _that_ case helped your relationship with Steve and Peggy. And your overall, ah, sense of well-being.” Bucky nods. “What will looking into this whole media kerfuffle, seeing all the mean things that people are saying about you and Peggy; what will that accomplish for you?” She regards Bucky for a moment as he sits in silence. “That’s a genuine question; you can answer.”

“...I don’t know. Nothing, probably.” He regards his hands for a moment, watching them wring around each other. “It’s a stupid...it’s dumb, isn’t it. I _should_ just let it go.”

“Well, first, there’s no _should_ when it comes to how you feel, remember?” Carolyn presses gently. “You’re allowed to feel anything about anything, without apology.”

“Yeah...”

“But I _am_ thinking now that we should try to articulate _why_ you feel this way.” Bucky makes a lost-sounding noise. “It’s okay, you can take your time.”

Bucky flashes her a grateful look, and then lets his gaze fall, sideways. Carolyn watches him braid and undo the same section of his hair three times before he speaks again. 

“I kinda...really...I mean I hate it. I hate knowing that people are saying all this awful, untrue stuff about us. Peggy’s not like that, she would never hurt Steve like that, and I wouldn’t...not when I’m _Bucky_ , not when I’m myself.”

“Of course not. I don’t think anyone can be around you guys for more than five seconds and not see the... _profound_ sense of loyalty and care that exists between you.”

“And people are out there spreading these lies and I hate it, I hate that I’m...I’m not brave enough to confront them.”

Carolyn raises her eyebrows. “Not brave enough?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, like swallowing medicine as fast as he can before the bitterness can stop him. “I mean, it took a spying scare to get me to leave the Tower for the first time since, in six months, and even then I couldn’t show my face to anyone. It’s like...I know it’s not like being in cryo, it’s not like Hydra, but I’m still...” Bucky ducks his head; runs his hands from the nape of his neck to the crown of his skull. “I don’t actually exist to anyone outside the Tower. And I can’t...I’m not brave enough, I’m not strong enough to. Even when it’d mean defending myself or Steve and Peggy.” 

Carolyn leans back in her chair, gathering her thoughts. Bucky stays hunched over in his, trying to gather himself. 

“Well, first. It’s not... _unwise_ for you to protect your anonymity when you’re out in public. You know that.”

Bucky snorts, casting his eyes heavenward. “Don’t I, though.”

“And second...it’s sounding to me like this is actually less about you “being able” to confront the people saying all this cruel stuff, and maybe more about wanting people to know the truth...?”

Bucky frowns. “How do you mean?”

“Well.” Carolyn purses her lips, considering the most tactful way to phrase this. “As...as the Soldier, as the Asset, you were...Hydra built this _terrible_ identity for you that, obviously, wasn’t reflective of your true self. And they did it so thoroughly that almost everyone, even you, was forced to believe in it. Very few people were allowed to know the truth.”

Bucky bites his lip, and makes himself nod. 

“So for the past several months, you’ve been working very hard to get that sense of your real self back. But now there’s this other identity that’s being built for you in the public eye, of another awful person—”

“Less awful than the Soldier, but yeah.”

“Yes, of course. But, whether it’s a smaller scale or not, once again your sense of self, your sense of who you are, is under attack. And on top of that, it’s involving people you love. I think it’s pretty natural to want to fight back against that. But given everything you’ve been through, of course you would feel a little helpless to do anything. Hence why you’re...stymied, I think is the word I want.”

“So...”

“So I think your focus is a little misdirected. I don’t think you want to see what everyone is saying. I don’t think that it’d be helpful for you in any case, so I’m officially advising against it. I think what you _really_ want is to, for the first time in a very long time, get to define _yourself_. To be able to tell the world who James Buchanan Barnes really is.”

She pauses, watching his face as he tries to process the new paradigm she’s offered, and she smiles weakly after a few seconds. “Does that sound right? I don’t want to tell you how it is you feel...”

“No it...” A laugh finds its way out of his mouth, and he roughly passes the heel of his palm over his eye. “It does. It does sound right. It makes a hell of a lot of sense, in any case.”

“All right.” She smiles a little brighter now. “So now, the million dollar question is what do you want to _do_ about that feeling. Do you want to try to let it go? Or do you want to follow through with it? And how?”

Bucky rests his elbow on the chair, his chin in his hand, and regards the corner for a long moment. 

“I think...I probably need to talk to Steve and Peggy.”

“I think that’s a good idea. And moreover,” she crosses her ankles, and almost smirks at him, “I absolutely think you’re brave enough to do it.”

*

He finds them with Tony and Pepper in their dining room, just as Tony finishes up saying “We’ll just recycle ‘em into paper cups. ‘s’what we did with Pepper’s. [Oh hi, Barnes](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C-IvV8thrO4).”

“Hey,” Bucky replies, glancing quickly around the kitchen and confirming, by their guilt-anxious faces, what they had been discussing.

“How was your appointment?” Steve asks.

“It was good. It was...productive; I actually wanna talk about it with you?”

“I think that’s our cue,” Pepper informs Steve and Peggy, straightening up from the chair she’s been leaning against.

“Actually,” Bucky says, shifting slightly on his feet, “I think...we might need your help.”

“Happy as always to oblige my friends and neighbors,” Tony says, spreading his arms and bowing slightly; Pepper raises her eyebrows, but nods.

“What’s goin’ on, Buck?” Steve asks, as Bucky slides, somewhat shakily, into a chair. 

Bucky pauses for a moment, watching his flesh thumb flick over and around the metal one. He’d come here straight from his appointment before he lost his nerve, and hadn’t had a ton of time to decide on the best approach.

“What’s it called, nowadays? When you’re queer, and you tell people about it.”

“... _Coming out_?” Pepper offers.

“Yeah.”

“You’re saying you want to come out?”

Bless Pepper. “Yeah. If Steve and Peggy are okay with it, then...yeah.”

Steve and Peggy, for their part, are staring at him as if he’s grown another head, and he tries not to cringe away from it. 

“I’m sorry, did Dr. Fields _tell_ you that you ought to come out?” Peggy asks, her eyes narrowing.

“No.” Bucky shakes his head quickly. “She just...helped me figure out that I wanted to.”

“And why do you want to?” Steve asks, his own face pinching into a frown.

“A couple reasons.” Bucky flicks his gaze up towards Peggy. “I mean, for one, I’m not okay with you being called a slut by the public.”

“Darling, you know it doesn’t bother me,” Peggy tries to offer.

Bucky knows that she tries not to let it and only mostly succeeds, and by the bite of his lip and the softening of his gaze Peggy knows he knows it.

“I know people are doing the same thing with me,” he continues instead of pressing. “Also not really crazy about that.”

“...Peggy _is_ getting it worse,” Pepper admits, after a moment of silence. “Or getting it _more_ , in any case.” 

“Ah, male privilege,” Tony cuts in. 

“But...yes, you’re not really...making it out unscathed, in the public eye,” Pepper continues. “Though if I’m being totally honest, I don’t know if your actual arrangement is going to be more or less socially acceptable than if there _was_ an affair going on.”

“You’re not gonna stop catching crap,” Tony clarifies. 

“Yeah, but at least it’d be over the _truth_ ,” Bucky returns, almost snaps. 

“...Fair,” Tony says, when no one else can think of a counterargument. 

“But, obviously, it’s not just my decision,” Bucky says, less vehement now. “Can’t do anything unless you two’re okay with it. _Wouldn’t_ , even if I could.”

Steve, in a rare moment, flounders; his fingers come up to rub his temples as if they’re arranging his thoughts. Peggy taps her finger against her lips, lightly biting down on her nail.

“It’s not that I want us to stay,” Peggy says, after a moment, “to stay closeted for the sake of staying closeted, only that...I don’t like the fact that our hand is essentially being forced. I don’t like the message it sends. That we can be... _harassed_ into giving up information.”

“Well, there _is_ a difference between something like this and being on a mission,” Tony says gamely. “We can always _shoot_ an enemy agent that’s giving you shit. Also, who you’re boning isn’t a matter of global security.”

“Stay classy, Tony,” Pepper mutters. 

“There’s also the fact that, well like Pepper and Tony said,” Steve gestures to them, “all the media scrutiny isn’t gonna stop. Hell, it might get _worse_. I’d _like_ us to be out in the open; shit, I’ve been dreamin’ about it since we were twelve years old, but...”

“You don’t want it to be just another traumatic thing for us,” Bucky supplies quietly, and Steve ducks his head but nods all the same. Peggy leans against her husband, as clear an agreement as anything. 

“Being as... _tactful_ as possible, though, I think that ship’s sailed,” Tony says, and indeed his tone is gentle. “The pics are already out there. Ya boi’s right; if people are gonna be...well, _people_ about it, it might as well be over the truth.”

“It also might help...” Pepper starts; she pauses, letting the attention shift to her. “Well. You’re certainly not the only people in a three-or-more-people relationship. You’re not even the only people in the Avengers who have such an arrangement. Having someone in your position come out obviously in favor of polyamory might go a long way in terms of it gaining acceptance.”

Bless Pepper twice over; an appeal to altruism. Bucky’s able to add a little more hope to the look he sends his partners. Much to his delight, they look thoughtful in response. 

“If...if we _were_ to do this,” Peggy says slowly, “I would want us to...we couldn’t just choose anybody. Any outlet, that is.”

“No press conference then?” Tony asks. “Damn, I love those...”

“I’m not interested in having random questions shouted at us from across a room,” Peggy answers flatly. “We already had our pictures released without our consent. I’d like us to be able to have a say in what we get asked and how we answer.”

“And who’s doing the asking,” Steve cuts in. “I’m not gonna tell anything to anyone who can’t...be respectful. Who’s gonna pry.”

“A one-on-one...well, _-three_ interviewer is gonna be pushy too,” Pepper warns, as Bucky starts to smile encouragingly, gratefully at Steve and then at Peggy. “I’m not sure if we know anyone who would...”

“Hold that thought,” Tony says suddenly. “You remember that kid at the Bugle who told Pepper who took the pictures?” Steve, Peggy, and Bucky make vague noises to the affirmative. “Well, we got a follow-up from him last night that I think you’ll find quite interesting. JARVIS?”

“Sir?” 

“Play that message Pepper got from...what was his name...Peter Parker.”

“As you wish, sir.”

“...hi,” suddenly fills the room, from a teenage boy clearly trying not to sound tremulous. “This is, this is Peter Parker from the, uh, from the Daily Bugle calling. I talked to Mrs—I mean Miss, uh Ms, Ms Director Potts the other day? Yeah. I just...I was watching the news, and I saw how, well, how-how-how rude and...how rude people are being about, um, Agent Carter and Mr, uh Sergeant Barnes, and all the hate mail that’s getting sent, and the hashtags, and...and, and I just wanted to, you know, apologize on, on behalf of the Bugle. I mean _I_ didn’t, I didn’t say we should publish those pictures, but I...I didn’t try hard enough to stop ‘em, so...I guess this doesn’t mean much but I really did want to apologize on, um, on our behalf. So um...thank you for listening. And I’m sorry, again. Um...bye. I’m sorry.”

“Naturally I _had_ to do some digging after that,” Tony says as the recording ends. “Nothing invasive. Kid’s an open book. Or a public Facebook, in any case. It turns out he’s the Bugle’s weekend intern. Aspiring photographer himself. _And_ he’s in the Broadcast Journalism club at Midtown Science and Tech.”

“Isn’t that where...?” Peggy starts, glancing at Steve, and he nods.

“Not only that, but he’s in the school’s Rainbow Alliance as well,” Tony continues. “He’s the first openly trans student at MIST. A plus B plus C equals I don’t think you’re gonna find a more compatible reporter. Besides, giving the juiciest celebrity interview of _two_ centuries exclusively to a college sophomore? That’s a power move, right there. A big fuck-you to all the major news networks currently leeching off your misfortune.”

“That’s...rather tempting; I won’t lie,” Peggy says, with a weak laugh. “We could call up Andrew after school hours; see if it’s something we’d have to do on school grounds, or if this Parker person can come to us.” 

“So...are you actually doing this?” Pepper presses carefully.

“Well...it’s not like I’m particularly thrilled knowing that Bucky and Peggy are getting ripped apart out there,” Steve says, crossing his arms. “And we’re not gaining anything by keeping quiet, in any case.” 

“Keeping quiet isn’t our style, anyway,” Peggy says, with a small laugh. 

“Yeah?” Bucky ventures tentatively. 

Steve weaves on his feet, flexing and clenching his fingers. “It was...it _was_ frustrating, back then. I only ever told my grandmother about you and me, and _you_ never told anyone, as far as I know. And then when it became the three of us, it was only Howard we could talk freely around...”

“It _is_ frustrating, still,” Peggy says, as agreeing as she is reluctant. “It...well it would have been nice to not have acted as the third wheel, when we were at the Faire.” There’s a general soft noise of agreement, and she chews on the inside of her cheek as if it’s her thoughts.

“So it’s basically,” Tony says, holding up his hands like they’re a balancing scale, “letting yourselves get shittalked over lies _versus_ doing something you’ve wanted to do for years, now that you can’t get arrested for it? Might just be me, but there appears to be no math there.”

“No,” Steve concedes with a small huff of laughter. “No, there really isn’t,” he confirms, but he still looks at Peggy, and then both of them look at Bucky.

“I’m, I’m not gonna change my mind,” Bucky says, more reassuring than bullheaded. “I won’t push it if you guys really don’t want to do it. But _I_ really want to do it.”

“You sure?” Steve inquires quietly. “With..with all the exposure, with everything that’s gonna be said...”

Bucky looks away for a second, steeling himself before he can look back.

“Steve, I’ve been...I’ve been _someone’s_ dirty little secret for...what, eighty-four years now?” The smile he forces onto his face is painfully wry. “Whether it was yours or Peggy’s or Hydra’s...”

“ _Bucky_ ,” Peggy whispers.

“I’m not sayin’ I wanna become, I want us to become public property, but.” He reaches up to shove a hank of hair behind his ear. “Even with all my files out there, I’m still...it’d just be nice to not be a...a ghost story, anymore.”

Steve breathes in; shifts his weight on his feet. Peggy pushes her hair away from her face and tilts sideways, slipping her hand into her husband’s and squeezing it. It’s the same dilemma as always; how best to protect him in every situation, how best to care for him and help him heal. 

Bucky had given them one of the answers on Sunday. It’s not unreasonable to think that he’s given them another one now. 

He looks up at them, finally meeting their eyes, and the decision is made.

His sense of timing has already worked out once this week, anyway.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s some debate as to whether polyamory is an orientation or not. My personal view is no currrrrrrr, but I do imagine Peggy as having had at least one polyamorous relationship before getting together with Steve and Bucky, and that she wasn’t a virgin when she met them. (Neither were they, but they had been monogamous, and to this day Bucky and Peggy are the only people Steve has ever slept with.)
> 
> [Carolyn Fields](http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Carolyn_Fields_\(Earth-400005\)) is on loan from the _Incredible Hulk_ TV series from the 70s, and [Anthony Ludgate](http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Anthony_Druid_\(Earth-616\)) is from the 616 comics universe. Disclaimer that _I am not a therapist_ ; I merely tried to imagine what my own therapist would say to me if we were in this situation, but that doesn’t mean it’s accurate.
> 
> Andrew meanwhile is the name I gave Morita’s grandson who’s the principal in Spider-Man: Homecoming. 
> 
> Trans Peter is love, Trans Peter is life.


	7. Cover Girl with Natural Grace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Information regarding Rosemarie Handel Arthursson/Elisabeth Schneider and her teddy bear (named Pappy) can be found in Chapter 5 of _Last of Days_. Cindy is her granddaughter, and the acquaintance between her and Team America is going to be expounded on in _Vorsprung durch Technik_ and in a future fic (working title _To Another Place_ ).
> 
> Peter is mostly based on Tom Holland's portrayal, but there’s probably some elements of Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and maybe even a little Reeve Carney/Matthew James Thomas mixed in there too. (Spider-Man is my sister's favorite superhero, so I've seen many incarnations of this character). I also aged Peter up, making MIST a small, post-secondary STEM trade school; this was to make the students less beholden to parental censorship. 
> 
> (Couldn’t decide if Peter’s been bitten by the spider at this point, but he's not Spider-Man yet in any case.)
> 
> There’s an Easter Egg for another future fic in here too :D

“Hello?”

“Hello, I’m looking for Cynthia?”

“You found her!”

“Cindy, hi. This is, this is Steve speaking.”

“Steve...Steve Rogers?” Cindy repeats, a little dazed. 

“One and only,” Steve says, with a small laugh. 

Cindy matches the sound, and catches her breath. “Sorry, it’s just...I wasn’t expecting to hear from you."

"Not a problem."

"So to what do I owe the pleasant surprise? Or is it...” He can hear the sudden dimming of her tone. “I’ve heard about, about...Agent Carter and Sergeant Barnes.”

“That’s...that’s actually _why_ I’m calling, I...it’s not what you’re thinking.”

“Yeah?”

“First, no one is cheating on me.”

“Oh, good!” Cindy heaves a theatrical sigh of relief. “Oh I’m so glad to hear that. Yeah, that didn’t...that didn’t seem right to me at all.”

“It's not, it's definitely not. So Peggy and Bucky and I...we’re going to be giving an interview to clear the whole thing up, and...well that’s why I’m calling you.”

“Ursula, shush please, Mommy’s on the phone...oh, yeah? Sorry, the baby’s fussing.”

“That’s fine,” Steve smiles. “I’ll try not to keep you. I just wanted to call you because...when we give this interview, we’re probably going to bring up the war, and there’s a possibility that Romy...that your grandmother _could_ be mentioned.”

“Oh?” Cindy’s tone is hard to place. 

“So I wanted to, _we_ wanted to call you guys and ask if you wanted us to avoid mentioning her. Figured we'd call everyone one at a time to see if there was _any_ objection, and...well, we like you best, so you were first.”

“Thanks,” Cindy giggles, trailing off as she considers the question. “And...I...well, I don’t know.”

“We don’t want your family to get any publicity, is the thing, if you don’t want it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Cindy laughs. “That’s...I’m sure Dad would have a conniption if reporters suddenly showed up outside his door.”

“And I know Romy herself didn’t...she didn’t really tell anyone about what happened until the end of her life, so...”

“Yeah. Yeah, she...hm. I’m thinking it’s, it’s probably best if you don’t mention her, if you can avoid it.”

“All right. That’s fine. That’s totally fine. We'll keep it quiet.”

“Please, thank you. I just...I know Grandma’s been gone a long time and all, but I’d still want to...it was a really painful subject for her, obviously, and I want to...protect her privacy, I guess. If that makes any sense?”

“Oh believe me. We understand that completely.”

Cindy makes a sympathetic noise. “How are they? Peggy and...and Sergeant Barnes.”

“Uh...well, they’re not precisely thrilled with what’s going on.”

“Oh Lord, I can imagine.”

“But they’re holding up.”

“Oh, good. I’m really, I’m really glad to hear it.”

Steve glances behind him, to where Bucky is sitting at the table. He pulls the phone away from his ear slightly, pointing the bottom at Bucky and raising his eyebrows. Bucky straightens up, breathes in, and nods stiffly.

“Do you...I know I said I wouldn’t keep you, but do you wanna say hello to Bucky?”

He hears Cindy’s breath hitch a little. “I’d...I’d love to, if that's okay.”

“All right, just...one second.” He brings the phone down and holds it out, then thinks better of it and crosses the kitchen to slip the phone into Bucky’s hand. 

Bucky doesn’t allow himself to think before he speaks. “Hello? Cynthia? Er...Cindy?”

“That's me," Cindy says, bright but a little hushed. "It's good to hear from you."

"Yeah, I'm...I'm sorry I haven't...called you yet."

"Oh, don't worry about it; I...I can get why you wouldn't've." Steve and Peggy had written her a thank-you letter, including an explanation on why Bucky couldn't—shouldn't—be pressed to write one himself.

"Mm. Listen, I wanted to...I wanted to thank you, for...for what you sent me. They were...they've helped."

"Yeah?"

"Absolutely. I'll, I'll take the letter out and read it every once in awhile, when I..." Cindy hums softly, allowing him to move on. "We put the picture up, too. Right above where we put Pappy. So they're both on, on...they're where we can see them."

"Well, I'm really...I'm happy. That we were able to, able to help you out a little, I mean. Like I said in the letter, it's really the least we could do."

Cindy waits, patiently, anxiously, for Bucky to be able to speak again.

"How's, how's the baby?"

"She's doing great! Hitting all her milestones. I'll send you a picture in a second. Actually, here..." There's a couple seconds of silence, made ragged by Cindy and Ursula both fussing, and then the phone buzzes in Bucky's hand, heralding the arrival of a blonde mother and her swaddled baby’s selfie. "What do you think?"

"She's adorable," Bucky says immediately.

"Super cute, Cindy," Steve tacks on loudly, from where he's been hovering over Bucky's shoulder.

"She looks like..."

"Like Grandma," Cindy fills in for him, as Bucky checks his recollection of the photo Cindy had sent in April to the one in his hand now. "I know, she's got her face. It's kind of eerie, honestly," she laughs, to give them all a moment to collect themselves. "You know, if you ever wanna see it in person...”

“It’s...” taking everything he has not to change his mind about heading out to MIST. “It might take me awhile to...get out to LA.”

“Yeah, and she shouldn’t fly until she’s six months, her doctor says. Oh well. We’ll see what the future brings.”

“Mhm.”

“And in the meantime we’re going to see you on TV?”

“Probably. That’s, um. The plan, in any case.” Peggy sticks her head into the kitchen, her own phone raised to indicate that she’s ended her call with Andrew. “It looks like we’re gettin’ the ball rolling now, actually.”

“Well, good luck! Do you know you’re gonna, when the interview’s gonna air?”

“Not yet, but I’m sure you’ll hear about it when it does.”

“I’ll keep my eye out for it,” Cindy laughs. “Take care of yourself in the meantime, okay?”

“I try to.”

“‘Bye, Cindy!” Peggy calls, watching Bucky tilt the phone away from his ear. 

“‘Bye!” Cindy calls back, loud enough for everyone in the kitchen to hear her. “Good luck, everybody!”

“So,” Peggy says, as Bucky sets the phone down. “Andrew says that school policy dictates that the interview take place on school grounds. Their insurance won’t cover interviews taking place anywhere else.”

Bucky nods. Steve sees Bucky’s fingers trembling as the adrenaline recedes, and sets his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. 

“What happens is that the club shoots and edits on Thursdays, and then on Fridays uploads the segment on their Youtube account, which is linked to their Facebook page and the school’s website. So there’s a possibility that the interview could die an obscure death, but he’s pretty sure someone’s going to end up submitting it to the news, so...”

“And he’s all right with us doing this?” Steve asks. 

“It’s publicity for the school,” Peggy says, raising her hands like she can’t believe it either. “Anyway, he says the club meets at 6pm; most classes are done by then so we have a lesser chance of being seen. He says we can meet him at his office and he’ll take us to where the club does their filming. He'll inform them that they're going to have surprise, important guests. Just not who, exactly." Steve nods. "So, if we're all right with these circumstances..." She tries to look at both men, but Bucky can feel her gaze laser-focused on him, and though he could swear he hears his bones creak as he does, he looks up at her and nods. "Well, then I suppose we should decide what it is we're comfortable disclosing."

"Cindy asked us to not mention her grandmother," Steve reports.

"All right." Peggy drifts towards the stove; tea is going to be necessary for this conversation. "Bucky?"

"Yeah?" Bucky manages to voice, albeit a tad rusty-sounding.

"I think...well, rather, how do you want us to handle anything that you don't quite remember?" She turns on the faucet as she watches him, knowing by feel how much water will be necessary to boil for three people.

"Um...well, I honestly doubt that you two are going to drop something...some devastatingly huge secret on camera," Bucky says while Peggy sets the kettle on the stove. "And _I_ can just say that I don't remember whatever it is we're talking about. Pretty sure everyone knows about my memory problems."

There's a harsh clinking in the cupboard that Peggy is fetching tea cups from.

"There _was_ stuff about it in the leaked files," Steve says robotically, and Bucky shifts as the fingers resting on his shoulder tense.

“Yeah. So...I mean I trust you guys to, ah, use your discretion, I guess. I’m not too worried.”

"Speaking of the leaked files," Peggy says, setting the cups down on the counter. "Do we—you and I, Steve—do we want to come out as...as having AIS as well?"

SHIELD medical files had been on a different server than the one Natasha had been able to partly release to the open internet; as focused as they had been on Bucky, it had taken about a week before they noticed that there had been no public discussion about that particular revelation. Natasha herself had not been so lucky, her transition having been referenced in various files that had made it out of SHIELD's auspices. She had shrugged it off when they tried to offer condolences, but they had their doubts.

"It's...it's probably not gonna come up," Steve says; Bucky reaches up to gently squeeze Steve's hand. "I wasn't, I wasn't thinking about just blurting it out apropos of nothing..."

“Nor was I, but...if we’re doing this, at least partly, to help other people in our situation, then...” She raises her eyebrows, and her shoulders. “[One percent](http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency) of the population is rather a lot of people.”

“Yeah. No, I see what you’re saying. But...” _It’s bad enough people are talking about our relationship; we don’t need them talking about our bodies, too_ doesn’t sound like a good enough excuse. “I dunno. Maybe we _should_.”

“You know there’s no reason you guys have to do that _tomorrow_ ,” Bucky offers, with an old nonchalance that’s more instinct than calculation now. “You can save it for some other day. Some other interview. I'm not plannin' on saying anything about the whole make-up thing for myself.”

“...Fair point,” Peggy says.

“And I mean, we all know this interview is about _me_ , anyway.” He bats his eyelashes; puts the heels of his palms near the sides of his neck and fans his fingers out like sunbeams. “Stop tryin’ to steal my th-...thunder.”

He trips over the last word because he’d lost confidence in the phrasing, and he tries to hide his cringe. But it works, he can almost _see_ Peggy’s brain shift gears, and the tension in Steve’s fingers changes character somehow.

“No thunder-stealing, got it,” Steve murmurs, bending down to kiss Bucky’s temple and then shifting away, to take a seat at the table. “I guess if the opportunity comes up, we can take it, but we won’t... _maneuver_ to make it happen.”

Peggy nods, and begins doling out teabags into the cups. “I was also thinking that we should have a signal, too. If one of us is...if we need to steer the conversation in a different direction." The kettle starts to whistle, and Peggy turns off the burner. "I propose three taps on the back of the hand with a pinky finger?”

“I can do that,” Bucky says. 

“Might wanna implement that as a general thing,” Steve says. 

“I can do that, too,” Bucky says, gamely, a tad sheepish. 

“So that’s three for three,” Peggy says, the now-full cups carefully arranged between her hands so she can carry all three to the table. There’s a spoon in one of them, and it gets passed around as they portion out sugar from the bowl on the table. “I can’t think of anything else specific to prepare for.”

“Nn,” Steve agrees, and Bucky clinks the sugar spoon in an affirmative way against the rim of the cup. He regards the brown liquid in front of him for a second or two, before he picks the cup up with his metal hand and holds it in their direction. 

“Just thinkin’ this is technically our first mission together in seventy years,” he says, when they look at him with question marks in their eyes. “Toasting it seems, uh...apropos.” He doesn’t _remember_ , per se, that word, but he’s pretty good at figuring things out from context. In any case it gets smiles out of them, and he’ll take all of those that he can get, no matter how wistful.

“Cheers,” Peggy offers, as she taps her cup against his. Steve himself is quiet, but the pressure he exerts when he adds his mug to the gathering speaks for itself.

*

Andrew Morita looks _startlingly_ like his grandfather.

Bucky isn’t quite prepared for that despite Steve and Peggy’s warning, and though he tries, it’s difficult to keep from staring. It’s good, in a weird way; it means Morita is familiar to him. It's also distracting, as he doesn't quite hear the man talking as he leads the three of them down one of the hallways of Midtown Institute of Science and Technology. Luckily Steve and Peggy had already gotten the chance to acclimate to the resemblance two years ago, so they're engaged in Andrew chatting about various points of interest about the school, and a repeat of the quick rundown of the Broadcast Journalism club that he had given Peggy over the phone.

"So, like I said, they know someone important's coming. Michelle's probably figured out it's you; not sure about the others."

"It's okay that they're not, um, prepared?" Steve asks.

"They’re really good at thinking on their feet,” Andrew assures. “They interview me blind at the start of every semester, and it’s always pulled off beautifully, if I do say so myself. A~nd here we are."

The door he's stopped them in front of has a helpful sign reading BROADCAST JOURNALISM - FILMING NOT IN PROGRESS covering the glass window. He knocks, a bit superfluously since he opens the door before anyone answers; Steve and Peggy meet eyes, remembering that habit as one of Jim's, and one that had very nearly gotten them into trouble more than once.

"Hello, children," Andrew says, loudly, and the chatter in the room slows to a stop as its inhabitants regard the intruder. "Sorry to interrupt, but your special guests have arrived..."

The guests step fully into the light, and someone inside the room drops a binder, scattering a few papers.

"Knew it," one girl—presumably Michelle—says, raising her hand triumphantly.

"Oh my God," a boy croaks with the anxiety-high voice they recognize from the message left for Pepper; his eyes are the deer to their headlights. "Oh my God."

"You must be Peter," Peggy says, making sure to sound elegantly amused as she steps into the room ahead of Steve and Bucky. "We got your message."

"Dude, you _called_ them?" the boy who had dropped the binder all but gasps.

"I had to, I couldn't, it was, Jameson, and I..." Peter unconsciously releases a distressed noise just a few decibels short of a wail, and Peggy has to cover her mouth before she bursts out laughing. Behind her Steve is also holding back a snicker as he steps in the room, and even Bucky finds a smile cracking itself on his face. "Am, am I getting served? 'Cause I don't have any money if you wanna sue me, but I _can_ work the debt off if—"

"Peter, please calm down," Andrew, also visibly entertained, swoops in. "They are not here to press suit over the photos in the Bugle."

"Like they’d think the weekend intern is where the big bucks are, anyway," Michelle says, rolling her eyes.

"Why, why, why, why are they here? Then?" Peter squeaks.

"We're here to grant you an interview," Steve announces, using his Captain America voice because teasing this kid is clearly fun; behind him Andrew shuts the door and slides into a chair. "An exclusive."

"Holy shit," Peter's friend whispers.

"Language, Ned," one of the other club members, a young woman, chides.

"Are you serious?" Ned tries again.

"As a heart attack," Steve confirms, not changing his tone.

"We were very impressed by your thoughtfulness with calling us to apologize, Peter," Peggy says, and Peter turns his head to gape at her. "So we decided that if we're going to explain our... _particular situation_ to anybody, it really ought to be you." She gestures with her head at the rest of the students in the room. "And your associates."

Sunned silence rules the room for a good fifteen seconds or so, before another young woman finally pulls herself together enough to slide off the desk she’d been sitting on and walk towards their guests. 

“Um...Liz Allen,” she says, offering her hand to Steve first. “I’m the club president,” she continues, next shaking Peggy’s hand. “And one of the camera operators.” There's a hesitant moment before she offers her hand to Bucky, when she notices that it'd be the metal hand that meets hers, but she pushes through it.

Bucky keeps his hand helpfully limp.

"And, uh, my co-workers, so to speak," Liz continues, stepping back so she can gesture to the room. "You're familiar with Peter, obviously; he's the one who'll be doing the actual interviewing." Peter's eyes widen to take up the better part of his face as that realization dawns. “Betty Brant, our other camera operator." The girl who had earlier scolded Ned offers a small, friendly wave. "Ned Leeds, our editor." Ned attempts to wave as well. "Gwen Stacey, our lighting tech.” Gwen grins broadly at them, still obviously a little dumbstruck. “And last but not least Michelle Jones, our make-up artist."

"And set designer," Michelle corrects, comically affronted; and indeed the back of the room is decorated with a couch and desk—the fact that they were salvaged and restored invisible to the naked eye—while the wall behind it is painted with an impressive minimalist rendering of the New York City skyline. 

"That too," Liz chuckles, before turning back to Steve, Peggy, and Bucky. "So, what we normally do when we interview someone here is...well first, we have our broadcasting agreement—”

“Done,” Andrew says, holding up the packet that Steve, Peggy, and Bucky had signed in his office.

“All~ right then. So now we’ll have Michelle do up your faces, and then we'll sit you down on the couch, adjust the lighting, and...roll camera. We usually do things in one take unless there's some big, distracting problem; we tend to not get too fancy. Afterwards Ned here edits the footage down so it's something enjoyable to watch, bleeps out anything not PG-rated, that sort of thing." She’s met with triplet nods and agreeable murmurs. "So...well if Michelle wants to get started, Peter and I can discuss some things real quick..."

"Who wants to go first?" Michelle grins; they hadn't noticed her dragging a rather impressive makeup kit out from underneath the desk she's seated at.

"I'll, um...I'll go first," Bucky says, when his partners dither for just a beat long enough. The thought of a stranger's hands on his face is a little nauseating, although it's offset by the fact that Michelle is not the right set of genotypes to be found on Hydra's payroll; getting it over with will do further wonders for his nerves.

Michelle ushers him into sitting at one of the desks, and then atop the desk when he proves too bulky to squeeze into the attached seat. His partners stick close, trying not to look like they're hovering too hard; Peggy watches Michelle's hands, matter-of-fact but not overly harsh as she works Bucky's face with brushes and sponges, and comments amiably about technique and color whenever she sees Bucky start to tense. Steve, for his part, glances around the room; Gwen and Betty are at their equipment, talking in hushed but clearly excited tones, and Peter and Ned have been corralled by Liz for an even more urgent and muted discussion. Peter glances over at him every once in awhile, nervous and apologetic, and Steve tries to send a look that says _Hey, I read your blog; we use the same brand of testosterone_ back.

"Check this contour," Michelle says, quicker than anyone thought she would; from her kit she pulls a hand mirror, and Peggy exclaims appropriately over the work Michelle's done as Bucky nods (he likes it far more than he's prepared to let on). "Now for the _real_ hero here..." She shoos Bucky into standing up, and takes Peggy's arm, sitting the bemused woman down in his place. Peggy's finished in even shorter order than Bucky, and when she rises she announces her intention to take Bucky over to sit on the couch, so they'll be settled and ready to go by the time Steve's done.

"Good idea," Steve affirms, sharing a smile with them as he slips into the make-up "chair" and they drift away.

"Hope I'm not threatening your chiseled, rippling masculinity with my girly makeup, Mr. Captain America, sir," Michelle smirks.

"Not at all," he returns good-humoredly, closing his eyes as he knows he'll be directed to do, and recalling the several official and unofficial make-up artists he'd been at the mercy of while on tour.

"Hey, um...Agent Carter? Sergeant Barnes?" Peggy and Bucky look up from where they're, in lieu of conversation, inspecting the couch they're sitting upon. Peter's standing in front of them, his hands wringing as he shifts his weight between his feet; Ned and Liz have left the room. "Hi."

"Hello," Peggy responds, and Bucky offers a weak smile.

"I know I already, um, left that message, but...I wanna apologize, again, I really do. Like, I thought the photos were doctored from the start, and even if they weren't, they weren't anybody's business anyway, like you're allowed to be friendly with each other, doesn't mean you're having an affair. And like, it isn't cool that the guy just, like, took pictures through your window, like that's not all right, at all. And I told my boss that, but he said he was gonna fire me if I didn't shut the fuck up, and this is like, the _one_ paid internship anywhere in Queens and I really need the—"

"Peter, it's fine," Peggy says, suppressing a grin. "We don't hold you responsible. I imagine you had no particular power in this situation, no matter how many protests you put up."

"No hard feelings, kid," Bucky tacks on. "Not towards you, anyway. We mean that."

"...Yeah?"

Bucky nods, and smiles wider, more warmly. "Do me a favor though; when _you're_ runnin' some newspaper some day, or beamin' stories directly into people's brains like you'll probably be able to do in a couple years...just be a little more considerate than your boss?"

"Absolutely," Peter says immediately, his nerves transforming into preening excitement now that he's not only been unequivocally forgiven, but also well-wished. "I won't...absolutely. Thank you."

"How do I look?” Steve asks, suddenly behind Peter, and the boy nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Ravishing, darling,” Peggy says, with a tiny grin. 

“Slightly less hideous than usual,” Bucky offers, and Steve swats in his direction as he picks his way over Peter’s feet, to sit against the far armrest. 

“Watch your eyes, everyone,” Gwen says, reaching up to turn on the set lights. 

Betty and Liz fuss with their cameras, conferring with Gwen and making adjustments. Michelle swoops in to puff some bronzing powder onto Steve’s face before flouncing off, satisfied. Peter sits at the desk opposite the couch, fussing with some papers that Ned and Liz had brought with them back into the room. Underneath the harsh bright lights and amid the bustle of strangers Bucky draws in a shallow breath and reminds himself that this was his idea. Steve and Peggy shift infinitesimally on either side of him, reminding him that, more importantly, none of them are alone in implementing it.

“All right,” Liz says, after she’s made her checks around the set. “Looks like we’re ready to go. We don’t need mics in a space this closed in, so just speak clearly, maybe a little louder than your normal speaking voice. Peter will set the volume.”

Peter nods at them, and they nod back. Steve stretches his hand across Bucky’s lap, ostensibly only to take Peggy’s, though both end up resting on Bucky’s thigh. 

“All right. Lights’re up. Roll cameras.” A soft whirring sound starts up as Betty follows Liz’s lead in this regard. “And...action.”

“Good afternoon, MISTers!” Peter says, facing one of the cameras directly; the presence of a recording device transforming him into a professional. “Welcome to another broadcast of _Shootin’ the Breeze_ , your one and only student-run school news source. Today we’ve got an amazing show for you, with probably _the_ most incredible special guests we’re ever going to have. Without further ado, esteemed viewers, I give you Captain America, Agent Carter, and Sergeant Barnes!”

The others in then room whoop and clap from behind the cameras, giving Steve, Peggy and Bucky something to react to. Steve internally rolls his eyes as he waves to his audience with the practiced ease courtesy of the USO. Peggy’s own wave is a tad more hesitant, but still elegant; Bucky just hopes the smile on his face isn’t too feral-looking. 

“I really cannot tell you how stoked we are, what an honor it is to have you three here with us today,” Peter continues, scooting his chair so he better faces the triad. 

“We appreciate that, Peter, thank you,” Steve says. 

“That’s so sweet of you to say,” Peggy tacks on. 

“And I wanna thank you guys so much for granting us this interview,” Peter says, after Bucky fails to find something to add. Ned breaks his reverie to note that he’s going to want to edit out that pause. 

“Well, we thought it’d be wise to...set the record straight,” Peggy says. “In light of recent, em...revelations.”

“The record,” Peter repeats. “Ah, yes. You mean...” He flips up one of the papers on his desk, and Betty and Liz zoom in on an 8x11” hard copy of one of the photos that had been released on Saturday. “Regarding these absolutely _boss_ pajamas you guys have on.”

It throws them so much that they don’t even think to laugh for a moment. Ned makes another mental editing note. 

“They, they _are_ quite adorable, aren’t they?” Peggy salvages; the pajamas in question are matching flanel, decorated with the logo of the original 1920s _Wonder Woman_ comics run. “Natasha gave them to us, the Black Widow did, when we moved up here from DC.”

“She’s got good taste,” Peter says, grinning now that he’s cracked the ice. “ _Couture_.” They’re much quicker to recognize a joke this time, and Peter laughs along with them. “All right but, getting back on track. These pictures came out this past Saturday, right, and they’ve caused...quite a stir with the public.”

“Yeah, which we don’t appreciate, by the way,” Steve says, going back to his Captain America voice.

“Oh?” 

“How many people do you know who’d appreciate having their business plastered all over the news for any jerk to put his two cents in on?” Steve says, willing his blood to only rise to the threshold of acceptable. “Those pictures were 100% an invasion of our privacy.”

“Not to mention the whole kerfuffle has cast a rather large shadow over what _had_ been a very nice moment,” Peggy says, crossing her arms and legs simultaneously to drive home her annoyance. 

“People deserve to feel safe and comfortable in their own homes, and that includes us,” Steve continues. 

“We may be public figures but we are _not_ public property,” Peggy bounces off her husband, and Bucky nearly starts when she settles her hand on his back, between his shoulder blades. “Sergeant Barnes least of all.”

The duetted tirade has taken Peter aback, but he blinks away his stunned expression quickly enough to maybe not warrant another edit. “So...so you have no problem with the actual _contents_ of these pictures, Captain Rogers?”

“None at all,” Steve says. 

“So...can you explain the, um, the _context_ , of the pictures then? Because I gotta say, Agent Carter,” he looks directly at Peggy now, “it, it really _does_ look like you’re kissing Sergeant Barnes here.”

If Peggy’s stomach clenches, it doesn’t show on her face. “That’s because I was.”

“You...you were?”

“Why wouldn’t I? He’s my boyfriend.”

There are several noises in the background that Ned is going to have to edit out later.

“Your...I’m sorry, you’re saying Sergeant Barnes is your boyfriend?”

“Indeed I am,” Peggy says, toying with Bucky’s hair effusively enough for it to be seen by the cameras. Peter’s face, despite the make-up Michelle had put on him before their guests’ arrival, is paling.

“So...so are we to take this to mean that...that you and Captain America are in an, an open marriage?”

“It’s not an open marriage,” Steve says, shaking his head. 

“There just happens to be a third person party to it,” Peggy specifies.

Peter gapes like a goldfish, and Steve sits up straight, like it will make a decades-old secret any easier to reveal.

“Peggy, Bucky, and I are in a relationship. With each other.”

Ned himself makes a noise that he will have to leave on the proverbial cutting room floor.

“I believe you young people call it a _closed triangle_ nowadays?” Peggy says, barely keeping a dazed, giddy laugh out of her voice. 

“I...” Peter finally blinks, and then goes right back to staring. “I...wow. Oh my God. Wow.”

“Yeah, me too,” Bucky finally speaks. 

Peter nigh unto collapses against the back of his chair, still visibly stunned. “This is... _so_ not what the American public is expecting to hear.”

“Well, it behooves people in our line of work to be full of surprises,” Peggy smiles. 

“So how long have...” Peter sits up suddenly, the initial shock fleeing, leaving verve in its place. “When did this start; how long has this arrangement been, been in place?”

“Well Bucky and I started, um,” Steve says; the terrible anxiety that’s been lodged in his heart for eighty-four years finally starting to crumble now that no one’s swooping in to arrest them. If he’s shaking it’s only on the inside. “We’ve been together since we were kids, since we were twelve or so. And Peggy...”

“I was conned into it during the war,” Peggy smiles. 

“Conned into it?” Peter repeats.

“I wasn’t _actually_ conned, don’t fret,” Peggy says, rolling her eyes. 

“So how did this...how did this come about, then?” Peter asks her directly. “Did they approach you with, uh, _Hey, will you go out with us?_ or...”

“That’s classified,” Steve says, finally free of his own disbelief enough to joke. 

“It...it is?”

“Well, some of it might still be; I dunno,” Steve says, quirking a half-smile. “We haven’t checked any of the relevant files.”

“And I don’t remember parts of it anyway,” Bucky says, a little blankly; remembering that he’d already marked this as an excuse for tacitness. “So...”

“It’s enough to say that by...February, maybe March of ‘43,” Peggy takes over, “we had decided that we, all three, had...had very strong affectionate feelings for each other, and we...decided to pursue them.”

“And what was that like?” Peter asks.

“Tricky.”

“Tricky?”

“Well what we were doing was...” Steve starts.

“Um, _frowned upon_ , probably.” 

“Well it was illegal,” Steve says, and God isn’t it surreally euphoric to be using the past tense. “Me and Bucky, that is. Completely illegal. Either of us by ourselves being with _Peggy_ would be what was just frowned upon.”

“ _Supposedly_ frowned upon,” Peggy elaborates. “We, Steve and I that is, we had a great deal of indulgence, a lot of people looking the other way, when it came to our relationship.” 

“So who all knew about your actual, um, situation? Did anyone?”

 _Howard did_ , Peggy almost says, before she thinks better of it. “I think some people suspected. We _know_ some people suspected. But no one ever... _confronted_ us about it.” It’s the truth at least.

“And how about in the modern day? Do the other Avengers know about this?”

“Yeah, they know,” Steve says. 

“And, and how did they take it?”

“Fine. It was...no one had very much to say about it, good or bad. Dr. Banner kept whatever thoughts he had to himself. Same with, same with Hawkeye.” Steve almost smiles at that. “Thor thought nothing of it at all. He’s been around a long time; he’s seen a lot of different, er, types of relationships.”

“Natasha was very enthused about it,” Peggy says, and Steve snorts. “She actually kept trying to set Steve and I up with people, before...right up until this passed April.”

“Really?” Peter somehow manages to look delighted through his befuddlement. “You had the Black Widow as your wingman?”

“Well, she tried to be,” Peggy says, her laugh slipping from fond into sad. “We weren’t...terribly receptive.”

“No?”

“Well we...” Her breath trips in her throat, and as she rights it she slides her hand down Bucky’s arm, to interlace their fingers tightly.

They had decided that if they were to do this, then they wouldn’t hold back. They would offer up no silence that would allow anyone to rake Bucky’s name through the mud ever again.

“One doesn’t just... _get over_ James Buchanan Barnes.”

“Nope,” Steve confirms, like a stone dropping. Beside him Bucky covers his face with his free hand.

“We know that some people are able to jump back into dating right after they lose their spouse, or they need to, but that wasn’t us,” Peggy continues. “We weren’t ready to move on. We probably never would have been. And ah, rather miraculously, we turned out to not have to.” She offers a somewhat watery smile as she claps both her and Bucky’s hand onto the man’s knee. 

“So, you say _spouse_...” Peter prompts. 

“Well obviously until polygamy is legal, he’s not _officially_ our husband, but...you know, it’s like how before we had same-sex marriage, and women still said “my wife”, men still said “my husband”...the feeling is the same, even if it’s not...even with no legal documents to support it.”

“So can I ask, can I ask you what’s the...what’s the status of your _legal_ marriage right now? Can we, um, quash the rumors that you and Captain America are getting a divorce, or...?”

“Yeah, please do,” Steve says, a little darkly. 

“We have no plans to end our marriage,” Peggy adds on. “Nor any desire to.”

“And Sergeant Barnes?” Bucky finally looks up, and Steve and Peggy brace to intervene. “You’re...all right with that?

“It’s...well, I mean, they thought I was _dead_ ,” Bucky says, almost laughing at the absurdity of it. “It’s not like I got _snubbed_ or anything. And, you know, them being married puts ‘em in a better position to take care of each other, so...I’m not about to, to make the practical side of life harder for ‘em just so it can _look_ like we’re on equal footing.”

“What he means is,” Peggy takes over, “say that, God forbid, we ever had to make some, some major healthcare decision for Steve. As the wife, I would have the right to make whatever that decision is. But I wouldn’t... _pull rank_ on Bucky; it wouldn’t be _Oh, well, you’re just the boyfriend, so shut up and do as I say._ We’d talk, and we’d come to an agreement as equals on what to do.” 

“Same if Bucky and I had to do something like that for Peggy,” Steve says.

“And I got...” Bucky starts, before his thoughts reorder into a better-sounding sentence. “They’re both my POAs, so...I guess that’s as close to a legal three-person marriage as we’re gonna get for, for now.”

“So it’s a...a strategic thing, your marriage?” Peter asks, glancing back and forth between Steve and Peggy. 

“It’s not...” Steve begins, ready to be angry; he catches himself just in time, reels it in. “Look, Peggy is my wife. And I take that completely seriously, in every respect. The legal rights and responsibilities, and the...and in the sense of, of...” He’s close to blushing now, but fuck if he can help it, and he wills his tongue to untie itself. Bucky isn’t the only love that Steve has to defend. “Y’know, I look at Peggy sometimes and I think...it hits me, that, _this is who I want to spend my life with. This is who I was meant for._ ”

It’s Peggy’s turn to try not to blush now, though her bitten lower lip would give her away to anyone who paid enough attention.

“So I have that relationship with Peggy. I just...I have it with Bucky, too.” Maybe not fully consciously Steve slides his arm through Bucky’s, and Peggy moves so all three of their hands meet in the middle. “One doesn’t take anything away from the other.”

“Precisely,” Peggy says.

“Yeah,” Bucky somehow manages to get out. 

“But I’m only _allowed_ to have one spouse on paper. And it just...it played out so that Peggy wound up as the on-paper spouse.”

“In real life,” Peggy cuts in, “in our everyday life at home, that is, we don’t treat our relationship as though there’s a...a hierarchy, I suppose. We consider ourselves married, all three, and we act like it. That’s the important part.”

“So there’s no...” Peter considers the question, and the editing Ned might have to do. “So it sounds like there’s no jealousy, no...territorial, _Hey, that’s mine_ kinda thing going on between you guys.” His gets triplet nods in return. “That’s great, that sounds really healthy. Can I ask...can I ask if it was like that from the, from the beginning? You know, as much as you’re able to share.”

Steve and Peggy glance at each other over Bucky’s head. Bucky hasn’t said much about what he does recall of the early stages of their relationship. Steve lightly scratches Bucky’s hand with his thumbnail, leaving an opening for him to give the signal. 

Bucky squeezes his hand instead. 

“Honestly,” Steve says, looking back at Peter now that permission has been granted, “honestly I was mostly blown away that it was happening. If anything I’d’ve expected these two to ditch me for each other, so jealousy just...it didn’t, didn’t enter the picture for me.”

“You expected them to ditch Captain America?” Peter laughs. 

“Well, _Captain America_ wasn’t anything back then,” Steve says, relaxing the smallest bit. “ _Captain America_ was just me sorta tripping my way through trying to lead a special ops squad, and probably looking like a total schmuck the whole time.”

“I happen to think you tripped along quite admirably, darling,” Peggy says, smiling. 

“Only ‘cause I had _you two_ to bounce off of. Y’know, people with _actual_ experience.”

“How about you, Agent Carter?” Peter asks. “Did you have any trouble with jealousy, or...?

“I’d actually already, well...” she giggles softly, awkwardly, “I’d already experimented with a three-partners-at-once arrangement, in my wayward youth. So I’d a chance to see how jealousy...I’d experience with working around the, the feeling. And I did _know_ , from the start, how strong Steve’s feelings were for Bucky, and vice-versa.”

“The whole Kreischberg thing kinda gave it away, I guess,” Bucky murmurs.

“Honestly, if you want to talk about ‘til death do they part...so I knew what I was getting into. I was prepared for it.”

“Was that hard for you to deal with?” Peter asks. “As the uh...the newcomer?”

“Not _hard to deal with_ , no,” Peggy says, pursing her lips to the side. “More like...I did wonder, every now and then, if I would eventually get...crowded out. Since I _was_ so new to their lives, and I didn't have the history with them that they had with each other.”

“Peggy’s good at breaking glass ceilings, though,” Steve says. 

“The best,” Bucky tacks on.

“You know I read something recently, about relationships, that...” Peggy tilts her head back, recomposing the quote into an apt paraphrase. “ _What’s important is not the length of time spent together; it’s what you’ve learned from one another._ I like that; I think that sums it up quite nicely. It didn’t, it _doesn’t_ really matter if I wasn’t part of the story from the beginning, from before the war. I was part of the story that was happening _then_ , and all of us are here together _now_ , and that means just as much, in the grand scheme of things.”

“That’s beautiful,” Peter says, genuine. 

Peggy smiles. “Thank you. I wish I could take credit for it.”

“I was jealous.”

“Sergeant Barnes?” Peter asks, as all eyes turn towards him, and the stomachs on either aide of him dissolve. They thought he’d say he didn’t remember... “You were?”

“In the beginning,” Bucky says, feeling his compulsive honesty practically coursing through his blood; his eyes are wide as the memories, a set of feelings and flashes of imagery more than a proper narrative, crackle in his brain, leaving him too dazzled to hold them in. “The very beginning. ‘Cause Steve...it’d been just me and him for years, and alla sudden here’s this... _incredible_ woman, who...” His face pinches, on its way to crumpling. “And I’m, I’m figuring that...Steve’s outgrown me, he’s moving on to better things, now that...”

“ _God_ , Buck,” Steve chokes, for a moment almost unaware of where they are. “Never.” 

“It would be fair to say...” Peggy cuts in slowly, deliberately, “it would be fair to say that Bucky and I had to... _come to terms_ with one another.” Her fingers flex, and clench as she takes a breath. “I won’t lie and say that everything was smooth sailing from the start. There was quite a lot happening for all of us, as you can well imagine. There _was_ a war on, after all.”

“Right, right,” Peter says.

“But... _circumstances arranged it_ so that Bucky and I got to spend a great deal of time alone together. So we got to...hash things out, I suppose, and grow into our own relationship without, you know, _vying_ for Steve’s attention at the same time. And it, well,” she nudges Bucky’s shoulder with her temple, getting small smiles out of both of them, “it would seem that it worked out for us.”

“I don’t think either of them are hankerin’ to get rid of me nowadays,” Bucky says, with a laugh that’s sardonic, but sincere. 

“So what does your life _look_ like, nowadays?” Peter asks. 

“Like...anyone else’s, probably,” Steve says, grateful for the change in subject. 

“Oh, I doubt that.”

“No, we’re really quite dull, in our downtime at least,” Peggy says. “If Steve or I aren’t off on business, we’re generally at home, just...being at home, together. Coming down from the fight.” Whether that means fussing over injuries that aren’t healing as quickly as desired, or coaxing Bucky back into bed after he falls out of it screaming. “Catching up with the new century.”

“We watch a _lot_ of movies,” Steve reports. 

“I read a lotta books,” Bucky offers. “Play with the cats.”

“What, really? You guys have cats?”

“Mmhmm,” Peggy says. “We think that they’re sisters. Their names are Pancakes and Waffles.”

“Oh my God, that’s too much. Where did you get those names from?”

“We were...they were strays that used to live around our building, when Peggy and I were living in DC,” Steve says. “Our apartment had a deck, so one morning, it’s a nice day, we’re off duty, we decide we’re gonna make breakfast and eat outside. So we’re out there, minding our own business, and these two cats show up to beg, and...well, we name them the first things that come to mind.”

“Do they have a favorite human?”

“Bucky,” Steve and Peggy say at the same time, to varying degrees of playfully resentful, as if they hadn’t deliberately put him in charge of the cats’ care so he’d have a reason to make himself get out of bed every day.

“They adore him, Pancakes especially,” Peggy elaborates as Bucky can’t help but grin a little. “They’re his babies; it’s ridiculous. And adorable.”

“Hey, speaking of,” Peter says, straightening up. “Do you have a plan for...say you have kids sometime in the future. Do you have an idea of how you’d handle that, as a uh, _closed triangle_?”

The stony, shifting silence that greets him makes him shrivel inwardly, though he manages to avoid visibly cringing. 

“Children are...not in the foreseeable future,” Peggy finally makes herself say, “but if we ever do have them, we’ll make sure they know that they have three parents who love them, and each other. Everything else will...grow out of that.”

Peter nods, and shifts in his chair. “So now...you're obviously... _very_ secure in your relationship now, both in the sense of you guys yourself, and in the uh, the broader sense, the legality of your situation, I mean. So is there a reason why you’ve kept this under wraps, in the modern day? Why are we just finding out about this arrangement now?”

“Well. Our _arrangement_ may not be illegal anymore, but we’re fully aware that most people won’t understand it, let alone approve of it. We saw no need to purposely put ourselves out there and invite that sort of scrutiny into our lives. We have more important, more _pressing_ concerns to put our attention to.”

“All right, that’s fair. So in light of that, what made you decide to...well, to use your own words, set the record straight? Publicly?”

“Well we did...we did seriously consider letting this whole thing blow over,” Steve says. “But, um...”

“It was my idea,” Bucky cuts in. “I’m the one who said we should do it.”

“And why was that?”

“Well...first, Peggy’s a better person than me, and she was taking all the... _everything_ like the champion she is, but I wasn’t really happy to stay quiet and let the whole world keep insulting her.”

“I wasn’t so big on that, either,” Steve glares. “Sitting back and watching the two people I love most get slandered internationally, especially for something that wasn’t true.”

“Understandable,” Peter says, bobbing his head. “So was that the, the only reason that you decided to...I guess we can call this coming out?”

Steve and Peggy glance at Bucky from the corner of their eyes, and Bucky shifts his weight, inhaling with something of a shudder.

“No, I...” Bucky pushes a hand through his hair; he’s acutely aware of the fact that he’s hunched in his seat, but he can’t make himself straighten up. “I had another reason.”

“And what was that?”

He can, with concerted effort and Steve’s hand on his back, make himself look up. 

“I wanted to...’cause there’s...there’s all this info out there about me as, as the Winter Soldier. Everyone knows a lot of stuff about me that’s...awful. Just awful. All the horrible things that I, that Hydra made me do. That they did _to_ me.”

Steve’s fingers curl into a loose fist, only his thumb present enough to keep rubbing against Bucky’s back. Peggy’s hand drifts up to cover Steve’s, her grip just as quietly incensed. 

“Something like this, it’s...” Fuck, he is not going to cry here, now. “It’s...it’s just kinda nice to tell the public something about me that’s actually... _good_ , for once.”

“I can see that,” Peter says, bobbing his head. “And hey, you know what, I think I can speak for a lot of people that, when I say that it’s nice to _hear_ about something good happening to you.”

Bucky thinks he says “thank you.” He tries to say it, at least.

Peter shuffles, mind racing. He can tell that he’s already led them about as far as they’ll be willing to go, and he’s not about to fall out of their good graces with more intrusive questioning, so...

“Now I don’t know if you guys know this, but this Saturday, the 11th, is National Coming Out Day. So all over the country, LGBT people are, hopefully, gonna feel safe enough to tell the world who they are and who they love. Is there anything you wanna say to them, in honor of Coming Out Day?”

Peggy clears her throat, shifts on her hips. “Yes. Yes there is. I want to tell anyone watching who has a relationship like ours that there is nothing for them to feel ashamed of.”

“And that being said,” Steve chimes in, “we also hope that they get to reveal themselves to whoever they want to _on their own terms_. Not anyone else’s.”

“That’s...that’s awesome, that’s such a great message for, for Coming Out Day. Thank you, Agent Carter, Captain Rogers.” They murmur their acceptance, and Peter looks directly at Bucky now that the man has pulled himsef together enough to sit back against the cushions. “And, and Sergeant Barnes? Any message to send to the folks at home?”

“I think they about covered it,” Bucky says, glancing fondly between his partners. 

“Well, it can be anything, doesn’t have to be for Coming Out Day specifically,” Peter laughs. “Just anything you wanna leave us with.”

Bucky bites down on the inside of his lower lip. There’s a dozen things he could say, all fragmented and more feeling than thought; in the stew something manages to crystallize, and he plunges his hand in after it.

“Just that...just that...we’ve...I lost them, for a long time,” he says, more hoarsely than he realizes, or that he’d want if he did. “They were taken from me. And we’ve fought, Steve and Peggy and me; we’ve fought really hard, to have this. To be together. To be happy. We’ve fought like hell, we’re _still_ fighting, every day, and...” He swallows, and exhales, and his body twitches of its own accord, but he looks up, and Liz zooms her camera in on the look on his face. “And we’ll do it for as long as we have to. Nothing, no one’s gonna take them away from me again.”

“Ever,” Peggy slips in quietly, a warning as much as a vow. 

“End of the line, right?” Steve murmurs, and Bucky nods, his lips pressing tightly against each other. 

“...I think that’s all for today,” Peggy says, soft but firm, after a beat. “We’re done, I’d say.”

“Oh. Ok, uh...” Peter takes a second to reorient himself, and brighten suitably up for the camera. “All right, guys, I really, _really_ wanna thank you for coming onto the show and...and just putting all this out there, sharing everything like you’ve done. I’m sure there are a _ton_ of people who’ll really appreciate you doing this.”

“Well, we hope so,” Steve says, sensing the need for a USO-grade smile, and grafting one onto his face. 

“To my fellow MISTers and everyone at home, we hope you enjoyed the show today,” Peter says, turning to face the cameras, and they turn towards him as well. “This has been _Shootin’ the Breeze_ with who I’m gonna call Team America, I’m your host Peter Parker, thanks for watching, good night!”

“...and...cut,” Liz says, after the cameras zoom back out and pan up to take in the background. Gwen reaches up to begin turning off the lights, and no one else moves for a long moment. Then...

“Betty, are you crying?” Michelle calls from the back of the room. 

“... _No_ ,” Betty squeaks. 

The balloon bursts, and the room collectively deflates at that; some flabbergasted laughter floats amongst the club members, and Betty fails to wipe her eyes discreetly as Gwen pats her back. Bucky tries to smile at her, and that just makes her sniffle harder, and him look away before he does likewise.

“Do you need us anymore, now?” Steve directs at Peter. “Are we free to go, or...?”

“Um. Well, if you wanna stick around, we’re gonna order food, and Ned’s gonna edit the footage. So if you wanna see what the final product’s gonna look like...”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Peggy says; Bucky’s leaning on her a tad heavily, both needing the support and enjoying the fact that he can do that, now, in front of others. “I’d like to see what you’re planning to air. Make sure everything comes across...honestly.”

“Right, right, that’s...I totally understand that. Um. Hope you like Vietnamese food?”

“That’s fine.”

“Okay. Okay, good.” Peter’s face goes through an interesting array of expressions, and the one he lands on—earnest—still manages to be awkward, but endearingly so. “Um. Uh...hey, y’know, I meant what I said, about you guys doing this. I got a friend who’s polyamorous, and she’s...she’s gonna be so happy to see this, when it airs. I mean, coming from _you_ guys...it’s a great endorsement. So. Um. Thank you, I guess, and...I know this is, this is gonna sound weird coming from me, ‘cause I’m pretty much nothing, but I know what it’s like to come out in public, and...I’m...proud of you. For doing it.”

“You’re pretty far from _nothing_ , Peter,” Steve says; he can feel Bucky tensing up, the way he does to keep from crying, and slides his hand over so it rests heavily on Bucky’s thigh. “And...thank you. We appreciate that, we really do.”

Peter nods, for lack of anything adequate to say, and luckily he’s interrupted by Andrew coming up behind him, allowing him to stutter through excusing himself and then trip away, to quietly freak out with Ned. 

“Hope we didn’t ruin any childhood, um, fancies tonight, Andrew,” Peggy says, looking up at him. 

Andrew inhales deeply, but the exhale is short and sharp as he sits atop the desk opposite the couch. “Not...really?”

“Oh?”

“Ah...Grandpa read that book, the one...you know the one. I remember him finishing it in one go, closing it up, setting it down, looking out the window...and then going _Welp. That makes sense._ ” The triad can’t help but laugh, even Bucky. “He was a little kooky by then, so no one took him too serious, but...well, I can’t say I was unprepared for tonight.”

“And this will air with no problem?” Peggy asks. “Considering the subject matter?”

“Oh, yeah,” Andrew says, waving his hand. “We give them pretty much free rein when it comes to topics they can air. We’re all grown-ups here.”

“All right,” Steve says. “Good. Um, what time, do you know what time this’ll be released tomorrow?”

“6:30?” Andrew says, a little loudly; Liz hears him from several feet away, and nods. “Goes up at 6:30.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“No problem. Uh, I’ve got some work I’ve been avoiding in my office, so come let me know when you’re ready to leave? I’ll make sure you get off campus safely.”

“Sure.”

“Thank you, again, for your help,” Peggy says, and Bucky’s got enough of a grip to smile and nod before Andrew can completely wave himself off. He deflates again once Andrew is gone, only shifting limply when Steve moves to dig his phone out of his pocket. 

“How’re you feeling, darling?” Peggy asks quietly; the club members are somewhat scattered across the room, affording them a modicum of privacy. 

“Okay,” Bucky allows. “Shaky,” he modifies, showing off his hands. 

“Well, we’ll eat soon, and that’ll help.” Peggy brushes a few strands of his hair off his face and leans over to look at her husband. “Steve?”

“I’m all right,” Steve says, in a strange tone. He’s found whatever he’s looking for, and sets the phone down on his leg. His gaze seems a little far-off. “You?”

“Same, I suppose.” She casts her mind about for anything more specific, and winds up quirking her lips in a tiny smile. “It does feel...it _was_ nice, to get to be able to...say those things. To not be in, in hiding, anymore.”

“When will you learn that _all_ my ideas are good ones?” Bucky asks, with the smallest of smirks.

Steve flicks his ear. Bucky grabs his hand before he can pull it away, and brings it to his lips. 

“We ought to watch that, when we get home,” Peggy says. “I’m putting in a formal request.”

“Okay,” Bucky laughs, pulling his and Steve’s hands down. 

“I’m all right with that,” Steve says, before shifting on his hips, his left hand squeezing his phone. “On one condition.”

“And what would that be?” Peggy queries. 

Steve brandishes his phone, slightly too quickly for them to see the info on it. “It’s gonna be dark out before the clip airs.”

“Mmhmm?”

“Think we—all three of us, I mean—could do a full Shabbos tomorrow? Or...it can just be an at-home one, we don’t need to go out, but just...no computers, no TV, nothing, just...” he glances over at the cameras, his eyes somehow narrowing and drooping at the same time, and a self-conscious laugh bubbles out of his mouth and pops into words. “Twenty-five hours where we literally _don’t allow_ ourselves to care about the public reaction to this. Where it’s just us. I’m...I’m making that formal request.”

“Probably a good idea,” Bucky says, thinking about Carolyn’s assessment, thinking that even Steve has to hide away sometimes. Thinking that maybe his own boldness in asking for what he needed might be rubbing off on Steve, and if that’s the only true good to come of this whole thing, Bucky thinks it was worth it. “To, um...detox, I guess, from this week like that.”

“It sounds doable,” Peggy says, knowing their thoughts. “It sounds _lovely_ , actually.”

“And hey, I’m sure we can think of something a lot more fun to fill up the time with.”

Two pleasedly surprised expressions turn to face him, and with this dream fulfilled, this decades-old weight off his shoulders, Bucky can raise them up close to his ears, and give his beloveds a grin that can unequivocally be called shit-eating. 

“Cheep-cheep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it happened; the chapter got too long and had to be split in half. All three of you reading this aren’t too mad about that, are you? XD
> 
> \- Peggy is paraphrasing from the manga/anime Yami no Matsuei. In the source material, one of the main characters, Hisoka, sees his partner of two years, Tsuzuki, have a nervous breakdown. Shaken, he asks Tsuzuki’s former partner Tatsumi, who’s known him for years, to look after him, since Hisoka (having suffered a lifetime of emotional abuse) has no people skills and doesn’t trust himself to be able to console him. Tatsumi informs Hisoka that his and Tsuzuki’s formal partnership only lasted three months, and when Hisoka still hesitates, tells him that “What’s important is not the length of time. And, at the very least, you’ve learned something about compassion after meeting Tsuzuki.”
> 
> In-universe, since I doubt that series would be on Peggy’s radar, we can pretend she’s paraphrasing something else.
> 
> \- The movie in question is _The Emperor’s New Groove_ and you should also watch it tonight.


	8. I Feel Like I Must Be Your Best Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **TW: Queer- and polyam-phobic bigotry; ableist talk**

**“Holy Shit,” Says Entire Nation, Putting Away Pitchforks, “We Did Not See That Coming.”**  
www.theonion.com

*

**i fucking love captain america** shared **Shootin’ the Breeze** ’s **video**  
HOLY SHIT #WorldWar3 #TeamAmerica #SorryAgentCarter

 **Kati Althouse**  
first!  
5 hrs ago  
**Leonard von Hofwegen**  
PLOT TWIST  
5 hrs ago  
**Jonathan McConnel**  
fake.

...this is fake, right?  
5 hrs ago  
**Keira Mickey**  
@Jeanine Gladwin WHOSE DELUSIONAL NOW BICTH  
5 hrs ago  
**Kelly Stoppelbein**  
“hes my boyfriend” i SCREAMED  
5 hrs ago  
**Kelly Stoppelbein**  
“peggy bucky and i are in a relationship with each other” i SCREAMED LOUDER  
5 hrs ago  
**Isha Washington**  
“thats classified” he cheated  
5 hrs ago  
**Patrick Falco**  
so are they gay or what  
5 hrs ago  
**Mayra Cortes**  
@Isha Washington lmao rite??? If u cant talk about it then u did sumthing shameful  
5 hrs ago  
**Nate Koszorus**  
@Patrick Falco their probably bi. the guys at least. wdk about agent carter i assume she is straight  
5 hrs ago  
**Kapena Pinho**  
@Nate Koszorus *they’re. And we don’t know WHAT they identify as. It’s not really our business. 

Honestly this whole interview was painful to watch. All three of them looked so uncomfortable, esp Bucky. You know they wouldn’t have done this if someone hadn’t taken their picture without their consent. Agent Carter said it best, they’re not public property. They don’t owe us any information about their personal life.  
5 hrs ago  
**Susan Tice**  
@Isha Washington @Mayra Cortes uhhhh this is CAPTAIN AMERICA were talking about. I highly doubt h would ever cheat on anyone  
5 hrs ago  
**Nate Koszorus**  
@Kapena Pinho and yet your here  
5 hrs ago  
**Jeanine Gladwin**  
I am shocked, disgusted, and disappointed to see people who presented themselves as heroes and role models for the American people, living a degenerate lifestyle and what’s worst, proudly announcing it for the whole world to see. Marriage is between one man and one woman ONLY! ! This “relationship” is a farce, and if they had any sense of shame at all they would cease this immoral behavior, publicly apologize, and resign from the Avengers.  
5 hrs ago  
**Ted Anderson**  
@Patrick Falco lol its not gay if its in a threeway!!!  
5 hrs ago  
**Masami Saitou**  
@Jeanine Gladwin lmao tony stark has fucked every woman jn malibu but yeah its capcarter who should reaign from the avengers  
5 hrs ago  
**Jeanine Gladwin**  
@Masami Saitou I do not condone any of Tony Stark’s past actions but he has at least been monogamous since he became Iron Man. (although he and Pepper Potts really SHOULD get married!) It is wildly inappropriate for someone bearing the title of Captain America to flaunt deviant sexual behavior like this. Children look up to this man!  
5 hrs ago  
**Keira Mickey**  
just curious @Jeanine Gladwin how many bees are in ur cunt rn  
5 hrs ago  
**Masami Saitou**  
@Jeanine Gladwin lmao “deviant sexual behavior” thy didnt drop a sex tape they just said that theyre in a three person relationship. mariage looks different all around the world. if theyre happy youve got no room to judge.  
5 hrs ago  
**Sami Parrish**  
lol “i already had a 3-partner relationship before” i would PAY to here this womans hoe storys  
5 hrs ago  
**Debra Duffy**  
“we had to come to terms with each other” that sounds........intolerable, like that is such bullshit. If I were Bucky as soon as I got a whiff of my man liking someone else I’d of been gone. Either I’m enough for you or I’m nothing to you. Take your balls out of your purse and grow some self-respect, Sargent Barnes.  
5 hrs ago  
**Jeanine Gladwin**  
@Keira Mickey there is no need for that sort of crude language. @Masami Saitou marriage is a way of life ordained by God. A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, forsaking all others. Anything else is not “marriage” it is fornication!  
5 hrs ago  
**Bethany Fiorello**  
@Jeanine Gladwin idk I have a really hard time imagining God up in His Heaven, wagging His finger and proclaiming “Thou shalt have only one dick in a bed. No more, no less.” Like, I feel like that’s beneath Him somehow.  
5 hrs ago  
**Bonnie Taylor**  
@Debra Duffy it’s not about being “enough” it’s about who you fall in love with. it is SO damaging to think that there’s only one Special Person in the world that’s “enough” to meet all your needs, and then when it turns out they aren’t, well it MUST mean that the relationship should end or the love isn’t real. so many people break their own hearts thinking this way.  
5 hrs ago  
**Margery Allardice**  
@Jeanine Gladwin Children SHOULD look up to him, and to Agent Carter and Sergeant Barnes too. They’re honest with themselves and with each other about what they want, and they found an arrangement that makes all of them happy, instead of being miserable sticking to a script of what kind of relationships they “should” have. This kind of arrangement requires a LOT of compassion, communication, and patience to pull off; all things the world sorely needs! I’m proud of them for going public like this, knowing that they’ll get ignorant, hateful comments like yours. If you want a “Biblical” marriage you can have one, but don’t try to force that model onto everyone else. Just because their love isn’t exclusive doesn’t mean it isn’t real.  
5 hrs ago  
**Debra Duffy**  
@Bonnie Taylor spoken like a true cheater lmao  
5 hrs ago  
**Keira Mickey**  
HOW MANY BEES @Jeanine Gladwin?????  
5 hrs ago  
**Kyle Dorsey**  
Fuck I’m crying actual tears of joy right now. I never once thought that my heroes could have a relationship that looks like mine. And they just put it out there! No fear! They did THAT! @Raymond Talarico @Dominick Manaster I love you both so much. We are not alone and there is nothing wrong with us!!! #PolyamPride  
5 hrs ago  
**Bonnie Taylor**  
@Debra Duffy it’s not fucking cheating!!! it is PERFECTLY NORMAL to have strong romantic feelings for other people more than once!!! and YES, at the SAME TIME!! if you can’t deal with that then that’s YOUR problem, don’t project YOUR hangups onto Bucky Barnes or anyone else.  
5 hrs ago  
**Joseph Reilly**  
I call bullshit. Polyamory is just cheating with permission.  
5 hrs ago  
**Mary Bueno**  
@Joseph Reilly “cheating with permission” so...not cheating, then? I mean by definition if you have permission to do something, than you’re not cheating. That’s like saying playing T-Ball is “cheating with permission” b/c they hit the ball off the pole instead of having a pitcher. It’s not cheating, it’s just playing a different game.  
5 hrs ago  
**Cathy Lowenstein**  
did you guys see the look on their faces when the host brings up having kids? they looked so sad :’( i wonder if maybe they have fertility issues and that’s why they dont have kids yet???  
5 hrs ago  
**Joseph Reilly**  
@Mary Bueno again i call bullshit. I was in a “polyamorous” relationship in the 60s and so were basically all my friends. It was just an excuse to have tons of meaningless sex. My girlfriend at the time slept with at least a dozen other guys while we were together and said it was “free love” when I told her I was uncomfortable with it. Everyone im still in touch with from college has stories like that. One of them was even raising some other guy’s kid bc of it, and you better believe THAT divorce was nasty.

Polyamory doesn’t work. Someone ALWAYS gets hurt.  
5 hrs ago  
**Kyle Dorsey**  
@Joseph Reilly first I’m really sorry you and your friends had a bad experience. What your girlfriend did was not cool. It was also not polyamory. In a real polyamorous relationship, everyone has to know and be okay with what their partners are doing. Once you told your girlfriend you were uncomfortable with her having sex with other people, that should have been it; she should’ve either respected your discomfort and stopped sleeping with other people, or broken up with you. Everyone has different wants when it comes to relationships; some people want one partner, some people want more than one partner, some people want one or two serious partners and a bunch of other less-serious partners, etc. And everyone has different needs, too! Some people need to be monoamorous, some people need to be polyamorous, and some people can go either way. The important thing is being honest and open and respecting everyone’s wants and needs!  
5 hrs ago  
**Jamie Wayne**  
@Cathy Lowenstein I mean Barnes probably shouldnt be trusted with a kid  
5 hrs ago  
**Cathy Lowenstein**  
@Jamie Wayne that’s a fcking horrible thing to say wtf  
5 hrs ago  
**Joseph Reilly**  
@Kyle Dorsey thank you for responding in such a polite mannor. Tbh im still skepical bc ive never seen any polyamorous relationship work out but if anyone can do it god bless em i guess  
5 hrs ago  
**Jamie Wayne**  
@Cathy Lowenstein i jusg meant that hes clearly got a lot of mental helth issues going on that you dont want to expose a kid to  
5 hrs ago  
**Kyle Dorsey**  
@Joseph Reilly no problem man. Always happy to help. And if you want healthy polyamory, look no further than me and my boyfriends. Or at #WorldWar3!  
5 hrs ago  
**Richard Hyatt**  
@Jamie Wayne dude just shut up  
5 hrs ago  
**Cathy Lowenstein**  
@Jamie Wayne fuck u. my mother has bipolar disorder. she takes medication goes to counseling makes healthy lifestyle choices etc. she is a wondeful mom who has been there for me my whole life. more than my so called ””normal””” father who ditched us when i was five for his new younger girlfriend. people with mental health problems arr fully capable of being amazing parents if they are activey adressing their problems just like parents with disabilities or diseases can be. or would u say a mom who gets cancer or has to be in a wheelchair shouldnt have her kids anymore bc shes no longer ”””perfect”””??? #TeamAmerica would be awesome parents bc they know the most important thing is to love their family and make their decisions based on that just like agent Carter said in the video. shame on u for spreading the stigma against parents w mental illnesses.  
5 hrs ago  
**Annie Katz**  
I loved the way Cap phrased it, with “this is who I was meant for.” Like I hope we all know that Cap is Jewish right? And in Judaism we have a concept called “bashert” which means “meant to be.” It can be anything—personally I think me rescuing my puppy was bashert—but most people take it to mean their soulmate, the person they’re meant to be with. So I got to thinking about how crazy their whole story is, with CapCarter getting frozen in ice, and Bucky’s whole thing with Hydra, and how SO MANY things had to align for them to meet each other again on 2014, and I thought that maybe if all this crazy stuff happened just for them to end up together again almost 70 years later, it’s a sign that they ARE each other’s bashert.

We’ve also got a legend that 40 days before a child is formed an angel decrees who they’re meant to be with. Maybe there was a heavenly clerical error, and that’s why they each have two basherts instead of just one??? XD XD XD  
4 hrs ago

*

** CAPTAIN AMERICA; AGENT CARTER REVEAL ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP WITH WINTER SOLDIER **

Sat Oct 11 - In a shocking interview released on Friday night, married superheroes Captain America / Captain Steven “Steve” Rogers and Agent Margaret “Peggy” Carter revealed that they maintain a joint romantic relationship with former Hydra captive-turned-asset Winter Soldier / Sergeant James “Bucky” Barnes. 

The interview comes a week after photos showing Agent Carter and Sergeant Barnes in an affectionate embrace were publicized, prompting rumors that the wife and best friend of Captain America were carrying on an affair. However, in an interview granted to members of the Broadcast Journalism Club of the Midtown Institute of Science and Technology, located in Long Island City, Queens, Agent Carter confirmed that she and Sgt. Barnes are members of a “closed triangle” with Capt. Rogers; a term used within polyamorous circles to indicate romantic commitment between three people.

The trio declined to share the circumstances leading up to the formation of the relationship, citing the possible classified status of relevant information and Sgt. Barnes’ memory loss, although they did reveal that Capt. Rogers and Sgt. Barnes had been together since 1930, with Agent Carter joining the relationship in 1943. Their arrangement, illegal at that time, appears to have been carried out in total secret during the war years, and the knowledge thereof only entrusted to a few others in the modern day. Despite the hardship of secrecy, war, and Sgt. Barnes’ presumed death in action and later return to life, the trio’s commitment to the relationship does not appear to ever have wavered: 

“I look at Peggy sometimes and I think [...] this is who I want to spend my life with. This is who I was meant for,” Capt. Rogers stated during the interview. “I have that relationship [...] with Bucky, too. One doesn’t take anything away from the other.”

Often styled as “CapCarter,” Capt. Rogers and Agent Carter married in 2012, when Sgt. Barnes was still presumed killed in action, and per the interview the couple has no plans to divorce now that Sgt. Barnes has been recovered alive. Despite this, both claimed Sgt. Barnes as an equal participant in the relationship; drawing comparisons to gay and lesbian couples before the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York, Agent Carter referred to Sgt. Barnes as “a spouse [...] with no legal documents to support [the relationship status].” 

Sgt. Barnes stated that he was untroubled by Rogers’ and Carter’s marriage, claiming that “being married puts them in a better position to take care of each other.” He also stated that the couple have power of attorney over him, calling the arrangement “as close to a legal three-person marriage” as is currently available within the United States. However, Sgt. Barnes admitted to experiencing jealousy of Rogers’ and Carter’s connection in the early stages of the relationship. 

“It would be fair to say that Bucky and I had to come to terms with one another,” Agent Carter agreed. The trio denied feelings of jealousy in their present arrangement, instead describing a quiet domestic life in their home at Avengers Tower with their two cats. All did not seem entirely rosy, however, as Sgt. Barnes stated that the trio “have fought really hard [...] to be together, to be happy. [...] We’re still fighting every day.” Nonetheless, he asserted that “No one’s going to take me away from them again.”

Agent Carter stated that while there are no current plans to raise a family, any future children would “know they have three parents.”

Famously camera shy, Capt. Rogers and Agent Carter have not spoken to the press since prior to the collapse of SHIELD, where it was revealed that not only had the international peacekeeping organization long since been infiltrated by neo-Nazi group Hydra, but that Sgt. James Barnes, thought killed in 1945, had been captured, kept alive via cryogenic technology, and brainwashed to fight on Hydra’s behalf. Sgt. Barnes himself has not been photographed since being released from Phillip Coulson Memorial Medical Center of Washington, DC, following the collpase. Nonetheless, the former Hydra asset claimed to be the impetus behind the granting of the interview, stating a desire to defend Agent Carter from accusations of adultery, and “to tell the public something about me that’s actually good.”

Whatever his hopes, public reaction to the interview has been mixed. Within hours of being uploaded to the internet, the interview had been viewed over two million times and shared nearly as much. By midnight EST the hashtags #TeamAmerica, #WorldWar3, and #SorryAgentCarter were trending worldwide. President Ellis, who pardoned Sgt. Barnes for his involvement with Hydra in April, published the following on Twitter early Saturday morning:

 **PresidentMatthewEllis** @prez44  
Happy to hear that #WorldWar3 is being fought with love instead of guns. Wishing #TeamAmerica the very best!

The interview and the president’s support have been lambasted by conservative groups. Senate Minority leader Marcus McFeeley released a statement calling the trio’s relationship “a disgraceful mockery of both marriage and friendship, and the time-honored traditions on which such noble institutions lay.” The sentiment has been echoed by such organizations as Family First, whose head, Kevin Russo, has stated on their official blog that “It is a shame that three people can be so deluded as to mistake lust and infidelity for affection. We can only pray that they turn away from their unnatural predilections before any children can be brought forth into this den of iniquity.”

Polyamory and LGBT organizations, on the other hand, have celebrated the interview as positive exposure for their communities. Rachel Grimm, founder of Infinite Possibilities, the nation’s largest polyamory advocacy group, released the following statement on the organization’s official website:

“I am beyond thrilled to get the news that Captain America, Agent Carter, and Sergeant Barnes have come out as polyamorous. It goes to show that anyone can be polyam, including heroes. Now people struggling with their identity, with their capacity to love multiple people the way they’ve been told they’re only “allowed” to love one person...now they can hear an icon like Agent Carter tell them that there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Now they can see Captain America himself proudly state that you can be “meant for” more than one person. Now the world had gotten bigger and brighter for queer and polyamorous people everywhere. We have taken a giant leap forward in our quest to be recognized, understood, and validated by the world at large. Thank you, #TeamAmerica!”

Friends and family have also come out in support of the trio on Twitter:

 **Sharon Carter** @Triskaidekaphilia  
they’re here, they’re queer, they hold each other dear. die mad about it. #TeamAmerica

 **Samuel T. Wilson** @XOFalconXO  
Nothing but respect, pride,  & love for #TeamAmerica, some of the best & bravest people I know

 **TonyMFStark** @IAmIronMan  
@CaptainAmericaOfficial I got some Congrats on the Coming Out doughnuts too if you want them 

While Capt. Rogers, Agent Carter, and Sgt. Barnes have not responded to requests for further comment, members of MIST’s Broadcast Journalism Club did speak with the mainstream press. According to senior and club president Elizabeth Allen, 21, the group was surprised by their appearance at the school, and the interview was impromptu and unscripted. The host of the interview, sophomore Peter Parker, 19, had reached out to the trio beforehand, but had not heard back from them until they arrived at the school. 

“They were real nice with us from start to finish,” Parker told _CVN_ , “but they’re really private people, and they’ve been through a lot. I think it was hard for them to come out and tell their story, knowing the whole world was gonna hear it.” 

Regarding the nature of their relationship, Parker was adamant. “They really do love each other a whole lot. What you see in the video? It’s not for show. Even after the cameras stopped rolling, they stayed on the couch like that for a long time. It was like they didn’t want to be more than arm’s reach away from each other, even for a minute.”

The president of MIST, Andrew Morita, 58, is the grandson of Private James Morita, who fought alongside Capt. Rogers and Sgt. Barnes during the second World War. Mr. Morita believes that while his grandfather did not know the truth about the relationship during the war, the veteran Howling Commando would have approved, or at least not objected.

“He’d at least be able to see that we owe a lot to that relationship,” Mr. Morita told _CVN_. “A lot of people would have died, or never been born at all, if those three hadn’t come together.”

The supposition was seconded by Lauren Driscoll, Ph.D, the first and only historian to publish academic literature speculating about what turned out to be the true nature of the Rogers-Carter-Barnes relationship. A few hours after the video was uploaded, in a response published on her Facebook page, the author of _A Secret Peace_ had only this to say:

“Thank you #TeamAmerica, for proving my thesis: love can, and does, save the world.”

_—Alice Gleason_

*

“Trick or treat!”

If the neighbor thinks it odd that Gandalf is accompanying Shaggy and Scooby-Doo to her door to collect candy, she doesn’t let on; merely coos appropriately over the cuteness of the costumes before dropping two bite-sized Snickers bars each into the pillowcases held out to her. Cooper, as Shaggy, and Lila, as Scooby, chorus their “Thank you!” before turning around to trot unceremoniously away from the door.

“Happy Halloween,” Bucky says, still a little awkward for all the practice he’s had, but better than when he shied out of greeting anyone at all at the start of the afternoon.

“Happy Halloween!” the woman says blithely, shutting the door and giving Bucky permission to somewhat powerwalk away.

“So I think they like him,” Natasha says, voice amusedly flat, as Bucky catches up with the two kids, and Lila slips one of her costumed hands into one of Bucky’s gloved ones.

“Yes, I think so, too,” Peggy says, a relieved little laugh in her voice. 

They’d spent the rest of October since the interview even more holed up than usual, sending low-level but well-paid interns out to fulfill any errands they had to run, counting on JARVIS to monitor public interest in them and advise when it finally wained. Tony mentioned their situation to Natasha, who related it to Laura, who bugged Clint into getting past JARVIS’s call-screening in order to ask if they’d like to escape to the Barton’s suburban home in Kentucky for what Laura was calling their _Shabbat-o-Ween_.

Bucky hadn’t met Clint yet, and none of them had encountered more than a picture of Laura and the kids, but both he and later Natasha assured them that the entire family knew the value of discretion.

“Not like the kids’re going around telling anyone they got two moms,” as Clint put it.

It took about a day of internal debate and running it past Carolyn for Bucky to say that yeah, it sounded like fun, and it’d be a good experience, and it was probably actually less risky than going to the Faire seeing as it was out-of-state and even fewer people would expect them to be there, and besides, they already had costumes, and...and did they think the kids would be okay with him?

Unqualified yeses across the board, it would seem, and right from the start, too; Cooper had gotten one glimpse of Bucky’s metal arm, declared it the _coolest thing ever_ , and demanded they find out if Bucky could lift him up with it. Shyer but still curious Lila was content merely to hold the metal hand whenever it occurred to her to do so, and both of them pouted so much at the thought of their new friends staying at the house while they trick-or-treated that the adults had to give in.

“That was the last one, guys,” Laura says, adjusting the glasses that seem determined to slip down her nose every three minutes or so. Small wonder the _real_ Velma was always losing hers.

A loud protest goes up, abruptly put down by Daphne-Natasha’s coolly arched eyebrow and Fred-Clint’s higher-pitched whine.

“It’s twenty of six,” Laura chides, once the noise levels off. “We still have to walk _all_ the way home.”

Which is, admittedly, not very far, and they know it. The pair makes to protest again, and Bucky quickly pulls Lila a few inches off the ground, turning her pout into a little shriek and then giggles. Cooper moves to hustle his sister out of the way so he can take his turn, and Bucky carries him several feet forward before setting him down and taking Lila up again.

In this way they get back to the Barton’s home without any more whining from the kids, and in the meantime Laura tells them a little more about herself. After working a summer as a caricaturist at the same circus Clint had grown up in, she eloped with him on New Year’s Eve of ‘99. They’d set up home in an abandoned and isolated farm in Illinois after Clint joined SHIELD, to which Natasha was eventually brought. They’d tried for kids for years, until they bought a “permanent” home in Laura’s parents’ Kentucky neighborhood, and were approved to adopt in 2012. She’d gone back to work immediately after the Triskelion collapse, when it wasn’t clear if Clint and Natasha had gainful employment anymore, but once the Avengers were officially reinstated as a branch of the United Nations Peacekeepers...

“...now I craft full-time. Painting, ceramics, etchings, you name it. I mainly sell online, but I’ll do fairs and the like when they come up. Though, mostly I rock the stay-at-home-mom gig, if we’re being totally honest.” She links arms with her husband, and pokes Natasha just above the hip with her free hand. “Between these two, I am definitely a kept woman.”

“I mean, we definitely keep her between us,” Clint deadpans.

He gets a backhand in the stomach for that remark, and not even from Laura. Luckily the kids remain oblivious.

“If one of you doesn’t mind helping the kids sort their candy?” Laura says loudly, once they’re inside. “Just throw out anything that’s already opened. And if you can check the ingredients, make sure there’s no gelatin in anything. We’ll put that stuff outside if there is.”

Cooper and Lila are already in the process of dumping all their candy in a slightly inconvenient spot on the living room floor, and they elect Bucky to be their helper by unceremoniously tugging him down to the carpet with them. The rest of the adults trail after Laura, waiting to be assigned their own tasks. 

Steve gets his first; instead of china, they’re to eat off paper plates decorated with smiling jack-o-lanterns, and Laura hands them to him with, “So how’ve you been, since the whole...thing?”

“All right. It’s...better than we thought it was gonna be.” Morbid, potentially masochistic, curiosity had sporadically gotten the better of all of them, and their discoveries had been more often than not—or at least, more often than expected—a pleasant surprise. “A lot better, actually.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, it was certainly nice to start getting letters telling me to _get it, girl_ rather than _burn in hell_ ,” Peggy says mildly, hipchecking the fridge closed after being asked by Natasha to fetch the butternut squash dish Laura had made earlier. 

“That does sound like a marked improvement,” Clint says, setting out wine glasses and two plastic orange cups emblazoned with friendly-looking bats. 

“I wish we could expect the same, if we were to...” Laura gestures vaguely around the room. “There’s a higher concentration of Kevin Russos than Rachel Grimms out this way, unfortunately.”

“I’m sorry, Laura,” Steve says. “I hope we’re not...rubbing it in your face, or anything.”

She shakes her head, and tries to smile brightly. “You’re not. It’s just...slow-going for now, is all. I know we’ll get there eventually.”

“D’you decide what you’re doing about the guy who took the pictures?” Clint asks. 

“Oh, they don’t have to worry about it,” Natasha says, plucking the dish out of Peggy’s hands. 

“...Why?” Steve drawls slowly, as Natasha bustles across the room to the counter. 

“Don’t _worry_ about it,” Natasha says, lilting now, as she tears the plastic wrap off a new bottle of Parmesan. 

Peggy is all too inclined to accept the admonishment. Steve is ready to press just a little bit further when his phone buzzes.

**Cindy**

_Ursula getting her beauty sleep after a long, hard day of eating and getting dressed up_  
_She can’t wait to meet you all on Sunday!_

He glances over to see Peggy looking at the same message, and can only imagine Bucky saw it on his phone, as well. Peggy catches his eye, and smiles. They had nervously answered when Cindy called a few days after the interview went up, only relaxing when she told them that things her grandmother had said in her last year, thought to be the nonsense babblings of a stroke victim, made a lot more sense now. Peggy gave her the full story then, with Steve and Bucky nearby; all four of them were in tears by the end of the call, but Cindy pulled herself together enough to say she was _really_ looking forward to eventually meeting Bucky now. 

So when they accepted the invitation to spend Halloween with the Bartons, it seemed only fair—only right, only good for them—to offer to meet her in California afterwards, as well. Tony and Pepper were already in Malibu for the holiday anyway, and Cindy’s home in Los Angeles was only about an hour away. She assured them it wouldn’t be a terrible drive for her, since it would be more difficult—in many respects—for them to go to her. 

In the weeks since, the bedroom floor has been occasionally littered with balled-up drafts of the letter Bucky’s been trying to send his brother-in-law and his family. From the determined but not grim look on his face whenever they inquire, a breakthrough seems imminent. 

They might feel like thanking that photographer if they didn’t still feel so much like punching him multiple times in the dick. Though since Natasha’s apparenty taken care of the _avenging_ part...

Nah. Urge to dick-punch still too strong. 

Natasha pops the [freshly-cheesed squash](https://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-nosher/israeli-couscous-stuffed-acorn-squash/) into the oven to warm up, and the action and conversation fully settles into that necessary for setting up a dinner party. Bucky—smiling weakly, clutching his phone to his chest—wanders into the kitchen, and is handed a box of small plastic bags and a tin of quarters, to put together with any verboten candy and added to the bowl sitting on a stand on the front porch with a HAPPY HALLOWEEN - PLEASE TAKE ONE! sign taped to it. He returns with Cooper and Lila in tow when they’re called in to take their seats, mainly to make sure they remain out from underfoot as the food is set out. Laura’s a vegetarian, and since she’s the one who cooks, so is the rest of the family by default, at least at home; Natasha takes the cheesey squash to the table, followed closely by Peggy carrying a bowl of the [tzimmes](http://whatjewwannaeat.com/crock-pot-tzimmes/) that’s been in the crockpot for the past several hours. The challot that have been sitting on the counter, draped in a maroon-colored towel decorated with autumn leaves, are handed to Steve to be set on the table. On the way there he sends an admonishing look to Clint when he catches him “testing” the wine straight out of the bottle.

“All right, places, everyone,” Laura eventually announces, and whoever isn’t already in a seat finds their way to one. She struggles with a lighter for a few seconds, before releasing a loud whine and handing it to Clint, who gets the flame going on the first try because “Of course you do, you buttmunch.”

Laura sings the blessing over the candles and it fills Steve’s throat; she looks nothing like his mother, but their voices are a little alike. Not for the first time he wonders what Sarah would have made of all this; he’s not even fully sure if she had figured out the truth of the relationship between him and Bucky by the time she passed away, let alone if she would have ever accepted it, or the addition of Peggy to it. Peggy’s parents wouldn’t have approved of Steve; she’s dolefully certain about that, _and_ that they would have died of either heart attacks or shame if they’d discovered their true arrangement. And Bucky’s family...he likes to think they would’ve rolled with it, if not at first, then at least eventually. If Bucky ever mails his letter, they might get to see if the Barnes _descendants_ , at least, would. 

He must breathe a little hard when Laura calls Cooper and Lila over to her, because Peggy’s hand seeks out his under the table, and Bucky, on the other side of Peggy, leans a little closer to them. 

Natasha hears it as well, and though she keeps her eyes on Laura and the kids until they’re kissed and sent back to their seats, she makes sure to catch all three of their eyes, one at a time, as Cooper and Lila settle.

“Eventually,” she says, soft enough for Laura and Clint and the kids to know to maintain a respectful distance. 

They want to laugh, because _how_ , and _who would let them at this point_ , and... 

Natasha raises an eyebrow at them as Laura moves on to the wine, and looks pointedly around the table before glancing down at herself.

...and it wouldn’t be the most impossible thing in the world, they have to—allow themselves to—admit.

Even if it was, well. There’s been plenty of impossible things accomplished in the last month, let alone in the last seventy years. They drink to that as much as to the day itself once Laura has finished praying, and Laura pulls the towel off the challot, letting everyone see them before she picks them up.

“Is that...did you put [candy](http://www.tabletmag.com/recipes-2/186422/halloween-candy-challah) in that bread, Laura?” Peggy asks, delightedly bemused.

“I’d like to enjoy my life,” Laura says, with as much solemnity as a sentence like that can have and a face to match, before she lifts the bread up, one in each hand. “Baruch atah...”

She keeps up the faux-seriousness until everyone chants “Amen” at her, and then finally lets herself grin as she rips two chunks off one of the loaves, pinching them between her fingers and holding them up so she can throw them to her children.

“Cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep!”

“ _Bucky_ ,” Peggy admonishes, and Steve leans around her to give him a _look_ , as the other three adults at the table draw back slightly from their suddenly avian chldren. Evidently he had done more with the kids and their candy than just help the former sort the latter.

Bucky presses his knuckles to his mouth and looks away for a moment. When he looks back he’s grinning, eyes alight in the candle flame and with his own inner warmth.

“What? I’d like to enjoy my life, too.”

Peggy rolls her eyes, and elbows him. Laura finally gets over her surprise and throws the bread to Cooper and Lila, who pipe down once their mouths are full; Clint and Natasha are tossed their portions next, and finally their guests. Bucky pops his in his mouth immediately and chews slowly, determined to ride this high as far as it can take him tonight and hopefully at least into Sunday. Steve and Peggy glance at each other first, mingling amusement and hesitation, before Peggy finally cracks a smile and lifts her piece at her husband, and he taps his own against it in kind.

There’s still a long way to go, but they’ll get there eventually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Between the two of them, Bucky gets all my mental health problems, and Laura gets all my would-be-a-pinterest-mom-if-pinterest-was-actually-user-friendly-and-also-if-I-had-kids tendencies. 
> 
> Here is a [video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ITxfUOlsIfI) on the essential Shabbas/Shabbat blessings, and one on the [blessing over children](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VO3irwYbIjE). There are [other things](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zKcYRCbsGfQ) that can be said/sung and done between each individual blessing (or _not_ said/sung/done as the video points out) but Laura, as you may have noticed, does what she wants. (Steve, I think, has a more traditionalist bent, but not a particularly stringent one.) Also, apparently [throwing the bread pieces is a Sephardic (Southern European/Northern African) custom](https://interfaithfamily.com/holidays/shabbat_and_other_holidays/how_you_can_make_shabbat_at_home/); Laura’s maiden name is Sonnenberg, which...is not Sephardic, but maybe her mom is, or she picked it up from a friend’s family, or she just found throwing the bread to her kids to be more fun and engaging for them.
> 
> This chapter was a bit mean of me considering what happens to the Bartons and Natasha between now and _I Had Strings_ , but hey, anyone can get discouraged and have setbacks at any time.
> 
> I’m so glad the dumb baby-bird noises my girlfriend and I make at each other when we want each other’s food is finally getting some mileage, also |D
> 
> And if you’re wondering why there was a focus on kids in this chapter...well, you’ll see when the CapBigBang rolls around~


End file.
